


Anglerfish

by CherriesAndChew



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Eldritch Horrors, Existential Crisis, Human Sacrifice, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Kidnapping, Loss of Control, M/M, Mind Rape, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other, Self-Mutilation, Sensory Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Tentacle Monsters, Urination, Vomiting, Wetting, suffocation, time dilation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-11 13:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3328604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherriesAndChew/pseuds/CherriesAndChew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sniper wasn’t the type to panic most of the time, but for the love of God, an octopus monster clone of his lover was holding him immobile on the edge of a pool of water with who knew what intentions.  If this wasn’t the time to indulge in a little panic, there wasn’t a time to do it ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not your traditional TentaSpy story. If you're looking for TentaSpy as just a Spy with tentacles instead of legs, you'll probably be disappointed. Fair warning.

An entire three-day weekend off was nearly unheard of, but Sniper wasn’t one to make light of it.  When Miss Pauling had dropped off their notice that intelligence reported that Gray Mann wouldn’t have a new force marshalled for at least a week, she’d told them to take the extra day to recuperate themselves however they saw fit, but to be back after that just in case.  Her intel had yet to be wrong about the old bastard, so they took it as the gospel it was.

Most of the team had decided to stay on base and just relax, but he wasn’t going to miss a chance to get out of the desert, even for a little while, and fortunately he knew just the place to disappear to for a brief holiday from the barren dryness.

He hadn’t actually been there beyond driving past it on some of his exploratory trips around the desert, looking for good hunting grounds, but some miles off the base, out from the craggy rocks and plateaus they lived near, was a literal oasis of lush green plants and the sounds of small creatures alive within…probably about a hundred acres of a decent-looking forest.  He’d gone by it several times, trying to see if anyone else was ever there or if it seemed to belong to anyone, but if there were somebody there, they were extremely good at covering their tracks.  With as huge as this desert was, there seemed to be a pretty decent chance that he was the only person around who knew about this spot.

He’d left right after their last battle of the week, letting the others know he’d be back before their next bout Tuesday morning, and that was basically that.  Engineer had made him wait long enough for the mechanic to install a radio he could call back to the base with if he got into any trouble, and that was the depth of their concern with him, which was exactly how he liked it.  He knew the radio was more for Engie’s peace of mind than his own, because he had no plans on talking to any of the others for the rest of the weekend.  A little space was good for every relationship, especially relationships that might involve a pack of obnoxiously loud teammates, most of whom had very poor impulse control.

He parked his van in a shady spot near the edge of the woods, and packed up his bag…a tent, sleeping bag, canteen, his favorite kukri, a couple of smaller pocket knives, his rifle and plenty of ammo, a few matchbooks, flashlight, and a pot for cooking whatever he managed to hunt and gather for his dinner.  It had been way too long since he’d roughed it this way, and he was looking forward to it.  Wouldn’t be exactly like his more carefree young days living in the bush among the Aboriginals, this much green meant it would probably be a lot easier to handle getting himself food and water than it was back in Australia.  But it would still be a comforting familiarity.

First things first was water.  Whatever this spot was, for it to be so big and so well grown, there was healthy water to be found somewhere, possibly a huge underground spring that would require some digging and boiling.  With luck, there would be actual standing water that he could just scoop up without a lot of hard work.  And a nice flat space nearby with some soft grass would be outright heaven.

Outright heaven it was, after about twenty minutes of wandering deep into the wooded area, he discovered that this little patch of green in the desert was right up against one of the many mesas scattered around the desert, and the water was in a large pond that disappeared into a cave at the base of the rock.  He had a feeling that the whole area was just sitting on a shallow water table, and the cave probably went pretty deep.

Good thing, meant there were probably fish to be had.  Easy cooking for dinner.

Sniper spent an hour stomping down an area of grass to clear out anything hiding inside, then putting up his tent and laying out his sleeping bag, crawling inside to lie and make sure he hadn’t missed any sharp rocks or roots that would be uncomfortable to sleep on.  Satisfied after a bit of rearranging and testing further, he took his kukri and headed off to gather himself some firewood, a smile on his face as he enjoyed the familiarity of the activity, the peace that came from the solitude.

By the time he came back after cutting up enough wood to start his fire, that solitude was already disrupted.

He dropped the wood in a pile next to where he planned to dig his pit, set down his kukri, and was debating where to find rocks for a fire pit, and right about then was when he heard the familiar snorting giggle from behind him.

“Are you bloody serious, Spy?” he demanded, swirling around with intent to face the man.  “Did you really follow me all the way out here?”

The Spy wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but that wasn’t exactly unusual for him.  Sniper scoffed a bit at the games the other man found necessary to play, crossing his arms.  “Come out, spook.  Do not think for a second I won’t set this whole forest on fire to find ya.”

It was silent for another moment, and then Sniper saw the movement out in the water.  A head peeking up from the middle of the lake, peering at him, still wearing that familiar colored mask, a sharp grin etched onto his face.

“I am afraid ze fire would not help you, my friend,” he said.

“What the hell are you doin’?”  Sniper walked closer to the lake, making a face at the sight.  “I wouldn’t’a thought you’d be willin’ to go swimmin’ in any dirty old water.”

“Well, it can be surprising what a person finds refreshing, my dear.”  Spy stayed low, only his head sticking out, though that was enough for Sniper to see that aside from him mask, Spy appeared to be, at the very least, shirtless.  “This water is, in fact, very nice.  You should join me for a swim.”

“I didn’t come out here to go dillyin’ about in the water, Spy.  I’ve got work to do before all that.  And you should go find wherever you left your suit and put it up where the bugs won’t be makin’ nests in it.”  Sniper was trying not to find this incredibly strange.  It wasn’t that he was surprised at the notion of Spy following him off on his private retreat-honestly, that was just kind of what Spy did-but to find the Frenchman willingly stripping out of his clothing to go dipping into the water without a word of complaint about the filth?  Now that was out of character.

“I’m not worried about zat.”  Spy swam a bit closer, as graceful in water as he was on land, considering there wasn’t even the splash of motion behind him.  “You already have your shelter, your wood.  Fire shouldn’t be difficult.  And as I said…ze water is fine.”

“You won’t be sayin’ that when you step out of it and you’ve got leeches up your bum.”  Sniper tucked his hands into his pockets, rolling his eyes behind his glasses as his voice took on a slightly less annoyed tone, becoming a bit more jovial.  “Honestly, Spy, if you wanted to come with me, you could have just asked me somethin’ about it.  Needin’ a vacation from the team doesn’t necessarily include you.”

The smile on Spy’s face curled up just a bit more at the corners, even as he seemed to just be contentedly treading water, ever so slowly moving towards the bank Sniper was standing on.  “Well I am glad to hear zat.  Perhaps what we should do zen is…start your vacation with a little fun?”

Sniper scoffed a bit, shaking his head and rubbing his forehead slightly, trying to weigh down the amusement that was threatening to overtake his annoyance.  “Spook, for the love of God.  Did I not give ya a proper g’bye before I left?  You had to go to this length?”

“Apparently, you are just that irresistible, my dear.”  Spy was still hanging low in the water, only his head and the hint of bare shoulders showing.  “Come along, now.  I want you here.”

Sniper just stared at him in silence for a bit, then rolled his eyes, walking right to the edge of the water before bending down to pull off his boots.  “I spoil ya, ya know that,” he mumbled, attention focused on looking for a spot to put his clothes that they would stay dry and relatively uninfested during the swim he was apparently about to take.

“But of course,” Spy said, from alarmingly close by, and Sniper flinched a bit at the proximity, looking at the water to see the Frenchman right beside him, still low in the water, and offering that same tight-lipped, almost predatory smile.

“Bloody hell, how did you get over here so fast?”  Sniper started to ask something more, but his voice trailed off when he got a better look at what he could see of the Spy.  His skin seemed…odd.  Not as smooth as usual, almost as though it were covered over in something, his ears were…pointy?  Either the mask was different or the ears beneath it were, and Sniper knew well enough what those ears, what everything under that mask should look like.  And the thin smile, something off with his lips.  Were those…

Were those _fangs_?

Instinct took over instantly, and Sniper flung the boots in his hand as hard as possible into the face of whoever or whatever it was in the water, spinning to race back for his tent.  He heard a familiar French swear behind him as the boots made contact, but whatever that thing was, for whatever reason it looked like him, that wasn’t Spy, wasn’t even close, and he wasn’t going to just wait for it to do whatever it had planned.

He heard a heavy splash behind him, and some sort of slick sliding against the grass, and he didn’t have to look to know what that meant, that meant get the kukri and start swinging as soon as he could get turned around.  Whatever the thing was, it was out of the water, and while most water creatures couldn’t move that fast on land, the fact that it was determined enough to come after him-

He closed his hand on the weapon, still where he’d dropped it after gathering wood, and swirled around, already swinging it towards the direction he figured the creature would be, hoping to scare it away, or at least keep some distance between them.

As soon as he’d swung the knife, turning around and sweeping it downward, his arm was jerked to a stop by something wet, slimy, and sticky, and he was face to face with the Spy-thing, whatever the hell it was.

He had enough time to get a good look at it when he turned, and honest to God he didn’t know what the hell he was seeing.  It had Spy’s face, his expressions, the torso seemed human, if not for the pale sheen of what might have been scales.  But below the waist, rather than legs, or anything that would have explained the locomotion the creature was capable of out of the water, it was like an octopus had just been grafted into place, with a mass of writhing tentacles bunched beneath the creature, easily holding it up so that it was as tall as Sniper, braced from all angles.  Small wonder then that it could move so quickly on land with that many limbs and that much apparent strength in them.

Sniper wrenched his arm backwards from the tentacle holding his kukri back, intent on pulling free, but the beast’s grip on his arm didn’t even budge.  Worse, a couple of the other tentacles snapped away from the supportive base, lashing at him, and even as he tried to shove them away, one caught his other arm, and one lashed around his legs, pinning them together before he could even try to kick.  The Spy beast smirked at him, pulling his kukri closer and reaching out with it’s hands to snatch the weapon away, throwing it aside, and Sniper grunted when his arms were pulled out to either side hard enough that he thought his shoulders might be on the verge of dislocating.

“Zat was rude, what you did,” the creature said, just holding him up as Sniper started struggling desperately to pull his limbs loose.  “I had done nothing to hurt you and you attacked me.”

“You ain’t Spy…” Sniper growled out, fruitlessly squirming to try to pull his arms free.

“Of course I’m not.  But you are ze one who made me zis way.”  The tentacle creature…the Tentaspy, whatever, he wasn’t going to keep thinking of it as Spy, reached out with one hand to poke and prod at the vest Sniper was wearing, lips jutting into a bit of a pout, obviously curious about the clothing.

“So what are you gonna do, eat me?  I swear I’ll claw me way out of your throat on the way down if you try!”  Sniper grunted and squirmed more when the Tenta’s hands traveled south a bit, patting at his hips and pulling out his shirt.  “Get your bloody hands off me!”

Tenta looked up at him, seeming more amused than anything, but said nothing, leaning back a bit, and a fourth tentacle whipped up and wrapped around Sniper’s chest, lifting him slightly off the ground, not releasing any of the man’s limbs as the creature slithered his way back towards the water.  Sniper thrashed around as hard as he could, knowing that as quick and strong as the beast was on land, he would have absolutely no chance against it in the water, but aside from the powerful muscles in those appendages, he could feel rows of suckers, just like an octopus would have, attaching against his clothes and skin.  As much as he tried, he couldn’t break himself free.

“Pardon me,” Tenta said, still calm, as it reached the water, slipping into the pond, but manhandled Sniper to a point that the other man was just sitting on the bank, feet in the water but still mostly on dry land.  “Not that I am inherently opposed to your habitat, but I greatly prefer mine, as you would imagine.”  He looked to the Australian, eyebrows raised.  “I would let go of you, but since you will either run away or attack me again, I am sure you will understand my inclination not to.”

“I feel pretty good about just gettin’ my gear and not comin’ back,” Sniper growled, giving up on struggling with the intent to save his energy and wait for a better opportunity.

“Yes, I can tell.”  The creature leaned forward, propping it’s elbows on the tentacle wrapped around Sniper’s leg and plopping it’s chin in it’s hands, just smiling up at him as though they were old friends telling secrets.  “But zat is not in your future, I am afraid.  It has been entirely too long since any of your kind have found my little coulee.”

Sniper wasn’t the type to panic most of the time, but for the love of God, an octopus monster clone of his lover was holding him immobile on the edge of a pool of water with who knew what intentions.  If this wasn’t the time to indulge in a little panic, there wasn’t a time to do it ever.  He jerked his body as hard as possible, and was rewarded with wrenching his legs up enough to throw Tentaspy off-balance, the tentacles holding him coming loose as they automatically tried to help the beast regain its balance. Sniper started drumming his heels hard against it’s chest, flipping back to claw at the ground, desperately trying to crawl away at least enough to get on his feet and start running, hopefully all the way back to his van to get the hell out of here.

The tentacles weren’t far enough off for him to pull completely free, and he cried out when this time he was yanked by the legs all the way backwards and into the pond, choking when the water rushed into his mouth and nose mid-shout, flailing to grab for the bank in an attempt to get free.  Even as this was happening, though, Tenta latched onto his arms, and he felt a sudden burst of sharp pain in his shoulder, like a dozen tiny jagged knives piercing into him, and he realized the damn thing was biting him at the same time it was working on drowning him, which did nothing to encourage him to stop frantically fighting against it.

Then he was above the surface, hacking and sputtering, gasping, squinting at the blurriness of the world around him before realizing he had lost his glasses and hat somewhere in the melee.  He could still see, however, that the Tentaspy had hauled him out to the middle of the pond, well away from the relative safety of the bank.  “D-damn you…” he gasped out, gagging up more water.

“It was your own doing, my dear,” Tenta hissed against the bite wound, still holding Sniper’s head above water with the tentacles tight around him.  “You are not leaving here.”

“The bloody hell…what do you want from me?”  Sniper struggled more, but aside from the chill of the water, he realized that his arm, the bitten one, was starting to go slack at his side.  “What did you do?”

“It’s a venom that will render you a little more pliable, rather zan zis ceaseless fighting and flailing about.”  The tentacles kept Sniper held still, but then he felt the beast’s hands actually rubbing and massaging at his back, as if to help coax the last coughs of water out of his lungs.  “It iz normal to be afraid.  I do not expect you to understand.”

“Let go!”  Sniper wriggled more, but the weird paralysis was moving outwards from the bite, causing a strange warmness to follow behind it, coming up his neck and through his torso.  “L-let go, you piece’a…”  The insults faded out before he could finish them.  His tongue felt suddenly thick and heavy, and he couldn’t quite get his jaw moving to keep speaking.

“Zere you go.  Just relax and let me take care of you.”  Tenta slowly unraveled the tentacles from around Sniper’s arms and legs, and he responded by immediately starting to kick, trying to will his body to swim, but all he got was a few weak strikes to the monster’s body before he couldn’t move against the weakness and weight of the water around him.  Nothing but his own body floating was supporting him now.

“N-no,” was all he was able to grind out, when he felt a tentacle wrap around his legs and maneuver him around, on his back and face-to-face with the creature.

“You should feel honored, my friend.  It has been such a long time since I have found anyone to allow into my fold.”  Those hands…cold and wet, raspy against Sniper’s faint stubble catching what he was now positive were slick scales…stroked along his face before lightly clasping his chin, the smile on the creature’s face all the more frightening for the true warmth in the smile.  “Now be still.  This shouldn’t take me long.”

Sniper’s brain tried very hard to force his mouth to form a serious chain of swears and threats, but the only thing he managed was a weak groan.  Tenta just smiled again at him, and it took hold of his hands, taking just a moment to remove the one glove the archer was wearing and allowing it to float away before just holding their palms together.

“Now.  How do we want to do zis, love?”  It continued to smile as it lifted Sniper’s arms up, draping the limp limbs over it’s shoulders and sparing a couple of tentacles to pin them there, a mockery of an embrace.  “I can put you at my side, or keep you close to my own heart, such as it iz.  Zough I doubt you have much of a preference.”

What the hell was this thing going to do to him?  He would have bet anything he was going to be some kind of meal for those jagged teeth to cut through, but aside from the apparently venomous bite in his shoulder, there was no damage done, nothing but holding and talking.  And the fact that he couldn’t do anything but stare up at it while it talked to him as though it wasn’t plotting something terrible didn’t really help his state on this and why were his hands burning?

He tried to shift his eyes towards where the monster was holding onto his hands with those tentacles, but couldn’t see anything but the slick bare torso he was pressed against and that feigned kindness of the seemingly familiar masked face.  A slightly pained noise came from his throat as he tried one more time to pull free, again with no response from his limbs.

“I know it iz unpleasant.  Ze coupling will take some time, and we will be more comfortable down below.  So first I must fix it so zat I can support us for the time.”  The burning feeling moved the way that the previous bite had spread, moving up Sniper’s arms at an alarming rate of speed, but then he was also suddenly aware of the feeling of some…some things slithering around in a way that felt as though they were under the skin of his wrists, pushing and squirming their way into him.  He wheezed out what was supposed to be a shout, eyes going wide as whatever they were felt as though they were starting to probe into him even deeper.

“Shhh, don’t be afraid.”  Tenta’s thumbs moved over his lips slightly, pulling them back a bit to peer curiously at the teeth behind them.  “Zis is ze first step.  You can already feel my blood in your veins…I am bringing your’s into mine as well.  Your kind cannot survive in ze depths, so I must arrange zis so zat you will.  I will be breathing for us both.”

What the bloody hell did that mean?  What was this thing going to do to him?  Sniper couldn’t understand how some aquatic creature’s blood could run so _hot_ , flaring through his body with each heartbeat.  He thought he could catch on fire despite being in the midst of so much water, that he could _melt_ , like he _was_ melting, like this monster was trying to boil him out of his own skin.

“Zere it is,” Tenta said, tilting it’s head back, eyes closing.  “Now I can feel you inside me as well.  Good.  Your body can accept zis.  Not all that I have brought in could.”  He leaned forward to Sniper, idly rubbing together their noses in what might have been intended as an affectionate gesture.  “You are breathing so hard.  Ze fear, yes.  I understand zat.  Zis is more zan your kind is prepared to understand.  It will come to you, in time.”  He gripped Sniper by the chin, looking him in the eyes and giving another loving smile.  “You will have enough time to understand.  All ze time in zis world, once I am done.”

If this was only the beginning, Sniper wasn’t sure he was going to accept it.  His body might have been able, but his brain was running at top speed, desperately trying to piece together some means of ending this while shying away from the sensation of something undulating under the skin of his forearms, being keenly and painfully aware of what it felt like for something to be connecting to his flesh from the inside while attempting to burn him alive at the same time.

“But for now, I am afraid it will be worse before it iz better.”  Tenta’s hands moved again, moving to hold Sniper’s temples, steadying his head.  “I will provide everyzing you need, but I must make sure you cannot hurt yourself by mistake.  It will frighten you, but you will ultimately understand.  Now…just…”

That was the last thing Sniper heard out loud.  The startling cold of something suddenly going into his ears actually was enough to get a twitch out of his paralyzed body, and his eyes went wide as Tenta actually bit its lip in what looked like concentration as whatever it was that somehow was coming from his palms was forced into and over his ears, the splashing and faint babble of water disappearing behind silence and shuddering as he tried to adjust to the sudden freezing dueling with the burning already present inside himself.

The Tenta was still moving his lips, still talking to him, but he couldn’t pick up even a hint of what was being said.  The being’s hands moved, and Sniper couldn’t stop a whimper when they moved to his mouth, and he had a better feeling of something thick and cold coming from it’s palms, covering and sticking to his mouth and sealing it completely shut.  When the hands moved to his eyes, Sniper finally started to scream, wordlessly and weak as it was from all that the monster had done to him, but it didn’t stop the slimy adhesive from coating over his eyes, gluing them closed, cutting away his last sight of the smiling Tenta still speaking aloud to him.  Blinded, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, basically nothing but a panicking mind wrapped in a useless meat shell, completely at mercy of a monster he couldn’t have ever seen coming.

Then he felt a hand cup over his nose.

Sniper’s terror was high enough at this point that he was able to twitch his head back and away, a shrill noise keening from his throat-hysteria, he noted on some level-but the Tentaspy gripped the back of his head with a still sticky hand, holding him in place, and on one of the increasingly rushed exhalations of air, that was when the glue or whatever the hell it was was over him, blocking off his last bit of oxygen.

His chest heaved desperately, feeling tight and horrible almost instantly, but he couldn’t do anything…his hands felt as though they were fused in place, snarled in the Tentaspy’s tentacles, his feet were still wrapped tight in another, and whatever venom had been injected into him from the bite wasn’t slackening it’s affect on him at all.  Now he couldn’t even breathe on his own, couldn’t hear, see, couldn’t even yell for help.

He thought for just a second of a kind of spider back home in Australia, a little beast that would dig a hole for itself and wait for prey to just walk into it’s house before springing.  Or wobbegons, sharks in the ocean that laid in wait and waggled their tails to lure in unsuspecting fish that it would gobble up immediately.

He thought of anglerfish.  Awful, ugly beasts, nasty creatures that bobbled a glowing light above their heads, an attractive lure to trick unknowing meals into swimming in closer.

Anglerfish females anyway.  The males…

Oh God.

He couldn’t breathe.

He just couldn’t _breathe_.

He wasn’t dying, at least not in any sense that he recognized.  His brain was working, but his chest.  It hurt.  It hurt so much and there just wasn’t any air, there wasn’t any relief.  His muscles heaved without his input, desperate to make sense of the constraint, even as his brain alerted him to the fact that his head had dipped below water, that the pressure around him wasn’t all coming from the tentacles clutching his hands and wrapped around his legs.  The chill grew as deep as he had earlier figured the water to be.  Tenta was touching him.  The creature’s arms actually held him close, pressing him against its torso, the heat from its blood mingled now with his own.  They were moving for a moment, down into the water, then they were stopped.  He thought.

The things in his arms hadn’t stopped moving.  Without anything else to focus on, he felt them.  Like worms, wriggling about in his skin, exploring him inside, delving through his muscles, tapping against his bones, twirling around his elbow, creeping along his biceps, through them, imaginary fire dancing behind his sealed eyes to accompany them on their exploration of his innards.

Sniper’s chest felt as though it would collapse in on itself.

He didn’t know when his shirt had disappeared.

He wanted to throw up.

Couldn’t.

Even if his stomach tried, nothing was going to get out.

He wouldn’t even suffocate on the vomit.

He was already suffocating.

But he wasn’t dying.

Tenta had told him that he wouldn’t die.

Oh God he wanted to die.

It felt like hours passed.

Days, weeks.  Eternities.  No sense of time in his own head.  Nothing to measure against.

He was sitting.  Somewhat.

Tenta had rolled itself up in a ball and Sniper was curled up against him, cradled in that mass of tentacles, being encased in them like a cocoon.  Caught by a predator.  The trap spider.  The wobbegon.  The anglerfish.

He had lost track of where his limbs were.  Or of where anything was but the heat and the tendrils snaking about inside himself, slowly entering his chest from his shoulders, still probing about his innards, wrapping them up.  What were they even doing?  Sniper had the sudden mental image of his captor slowly hollowing him out, just melting him away in a watery flame and draping itself with the skin that was left, disguising itself like him, just wearing him.  All the while Sniper would still be inside too, still trapped inside his own head but with the thing in there with him, still alive and dead and not able to deal with either of those things.

The tendrils inside him were prodding about his ribcage, moving towards his spasming lungs, and he thought this was going to be it, it was going to tear those organs loose, he didn’t need them anymore, they were just something else Tenta had to support with his own blood, his own heart and lungs or gills or whatever the hell a monster with your lover’s face was packing.

But he felt an odd jolt of pain, a bump against something inside his chest, and he actually felt something other than the encasement of the beast wrapped around him.

The Tentaspy flinched.

The tendrils paused in their movement, then they probed at whatever it was again, and Sniper’s heartbeat jumped, and he would have spasmed if his muscles were under his own control.  Even so, he felt the tentacles come closer around him, holding his body tightly, slightly warmer than the water around him.  Something tugged in his chest, and he tried to scream again, fruitlessly, at the weird, horrific pain.

The answer came to him in a sudden flash of memory.  That day on the battlefield, only a few days after the team had started working together.  They were getting decimated by their enemies.  Hell, he and the Engineer were the only two not hurt and they were reduced to huddling behind cover together to escape the barrage.  The Heavy had been wounded badly enough that their Medic had whisked him off the field altogether.

And suddenly they were both back, and what an image that had been.  Heavy had literally been glowing, bullets pinging off him like a steel wall, mowing through the army they were up against.  After the fact, Medic had herded their entire team into his lab to receive the same upgrade, something he referred to as the Ubercharge.  Best Sniper could remember, it had involved getting what seemed like an unhealthily enormous metal something getting embedded into their hearts…or some kind of hearts, anyway…and implanted back in with them no worse for the wear.  It had been a while to get used to, the feeling of having a big piece of metal in your chest, literally attached to your own heart, but it had been years now, and he had gotten the hang of not even noticing it anymore.

Until he got kidnapped by a tentacle monster that got its way into his body and started trying to pry the damned thing free.

He couldn’t stop his silent shrieking as Tenta’s efforts seemed to become downright frantic.  He could actually _feel_ one tendril wrap around his heart, dear God he didn’t have anything to block that out and he _felt_ it, bracing the organ while the other pried at the Ubercharge transplant, thudding against the inside of his ribs and sternum, jostling atrophying lungs, bumping into every organ that might conceivably be found in a chest cavity, organs that had no business knowing what it felt like to get bumped into in such a way.

The tentacles around his body abruptly tightened even more, compressing him, grinding bones, which hurt but wasn’t even a distraction from the agony in his chest.  The hands, so like Spy’s and so not, clutched his shoulders, digging in claws that he knew were drawing blood.  Some tiny bit of his mind, unbidden, spared a hilarious second to be concerned about the level of infection that the dirty water would cause in those wounds, before being immediately silenced again by the sheer insanity of the whole of his situation.

Suddenly those things inside him were unfurling from around his innards, and he was practically yanked by the tentacles wrapped around his arms, Tenta’s arms snatching him roughly about the waist, and there was movement again, harsh and fast through the water.  He felt those tentacles around and behind him, thrashing and waving, propelling them at a speed he wouldn’t have thought capable underwater.

He suddenly felt air on his face, the lapping of water around him again, and realized he was above water again.  Not that this made much of a difference since whatever was keeping him from breathing was still in place, but it was new.  And the monster was still moving.

And abruptly he found himself being lifted in Tenta’s arms, totally out of the water, only now that he was out of it aware of the fact that his clothing had been all but torn away. Socks gone, shirt and vest gone, pants torn and shredded, one leg missing and the other in rags down to around his shin.  He wasn’t sure how any of this had happened, he certainly couldn’t recall it, but then he’d been preoccupied with other matters.  Still was.

Then he felt the roughness of rocks and soil under him as Tenta lowered him onto the bank.  He still couldn’t move, wasn’t sure if he’d dare to even if he were able, because even though whatever the things were that were moving inside him had retreated, he could still feel them wriggling in his forearms, and the tentacles still firmly wrapped around his wrists meant they weren’t coming out any time soon.

There wasn’t anything else for a moment, he couldn’t tell if the monster was moving or not, or where he was other than back on land, at least.  Without anything but his sense of touch and the burning, heaving pain racking through him, without those tentacles grabbing and wrapping him inside and out, there wasn’t anything to measure against.  No sense of time, no sense of space.  It felt like everything had happened in a matter of minutes.  Or maybe he’d been right before about it being months.  Who would know?

He heard tapping at his ears.  Well, felt it more than heard it, but something was happening there, a steady clicking pressure.  He felt a tentacle at his left ear, pressing against the side of his face, the small but strong suckers clutching and releasing in nearly a rhythm.

Then he felt a pulling inside his ear along that side, a yanking, and a suddenly snap sensation in his ear, trying to scream again when sound flooded back into the world.  He felt hot breath against his ear, and Tenta’s voice, snarling, right there.

“You are a liar.”

Sniper felt the tentacles covering his face, and there came a hard tug at the cover of his nose, before it stopped.

“You presented yourself to me, came unbidden to my domain, and you…you do not tell me of zis…zis zing inside of you.  It iz not a part of you, it could not be a part of us.  What iz it?  Why iz it zere?”

Sniper didn’t understand what the hell Tenta was talking about.  As if this was something he’d chosen to do, to be a part of this.  He had just wanted to spend a couple days sleeping under the stars and maybe fishing or hunting before going back to a life of nonstop war, not getting put through a level of hell he’d never imagined existed.

“I will not let zis stop us,” Tenta continued, with another tug at the mass over Sniper’s nose.  “I have already begun to make you a part of me.  Zis piece will have to go.  It can not be inside of us for our future.  It will interfere.”

There was another hard yank, and suddenly the blockage was gone, feeling as though it had taken skin and hair with it, but Sniper couldn’t focus on that pain because his lungs all but seized at suddenly regaining their function, and the air he all but snorted in was cold and burning and ached but was so good that he couldn’t even slow down, body trying its damndest to draw in every last bit of oxygen through the proper channels that it could.  There was a wheeze through his throat as neglected pathways cleared of the mucus and swelling that had formed, but there was _air_ , his own air, and he never thought he had taken the simple act of _breathing_ for granted before now.

If he hadn’t gotten so enthralled with the simple act of getting his respiratory system back into functioning order, he might have had a moment to think about exactly what the creature was saying to him.

“You will go to whomever put zis inside of you, and zey will remove it,” Tenta hissed into his ear.  “And you will come back to me.  You are mine.  We are of the same blood and two halves of ze whole.  I will not tolerate zis intrusion you have brought with you.”

He heard _that_ , and Sniper managed a faint groan of protest, straining to try and somehow force words through his nose, if need be, to tell the monster that there was a better chance of him growing wings and flying than of ever coming back to this place, to be a _part_ of the _thing_ , whatever it was.  He felt taloned hands close around his wrists, which still contained writhing tendrils, and Tenta’s weight shifted, actually straddling over him, the weird, wet, firm gelatinous body that it had pressing against his stomach and legs.

“You are going to come back.  You won’t be able to stop yourself.  But know zis.  I will not take you back until zat zing is removed.  Have it taken out, and I will take you back.”

What the bloody hell was it getting at?  Take out the Uber transplant that was the only thing that kept him alive half the time, so he could come back here and get dragged underwater to be forcibly…what, eaten?  Changed into some monster himself?  He didn’t know what Tenta wanted with him but he knew that if this thing let him go, he was going to get the hell away from here and not come back without his entire team so they could raze this whole forest to the ground and dump the most vile poison they could come up with into this pond.

He’d gotten used to the heat of the creature’s blood moving through him, as impossible as it seemed to adjust to that level of heat rushing into you.  But something changed, and the temperature inverted so suddenly that Sniper screamed again.  It wasn’t coming from the monster, though.  Rather it was like there was a chill, starting in the center of his chest, following through his body, like his own heart had started pumping ice water through his veins, all the heat drawing out of him and draining into the Tentaspy.

“You will get zis back when you come to me again,” Tenta whispered into his ear, leaning down closer, laying against Sniper’s chest, bare skin to bare skin, feeling it as unbidden shivers began to roll through the Australian’s frame.  “Spirits are…finicky zings.  Tear zem in two and ze body and mind…follow.”  Clawed fingers trailed lightly over the side of Sniper’s face, almost what could be called a caress, as the last little bits of anything that might have been warmth escaped out through Sniper’s hands, following the thin tendrils as they finally wiggled out of Sniper’s skin.  “So zis iz what you will do.  You will have zat zing removed from your chest, and you will come back here where you belong, and zen I will return what I have stolen from you.  You will be whole once more.   _We_ will be whole.”

And just like that, he was gone.

The weight shifted away from him, off the land, and he barely heard the splash as the Tenta returned to it’s pond.  He couldn’t move yet, was still muzzled and blinded, but the thing wasn’t touching him and holding him anymore, and that was already an improvement on his situation.

He was still so _cold_ , though.  As though everything that had ever been warm had ceased to exist.  His chest still throbbed from the long absence of air, but there was another deep, aching hurt that was settling into him.  Something about this pain, about the way it clutched and clawed at him from the inside out, made him almost feel like he could just start to panic.  And the longer he laid there on the bank, the worse it got.

Sniper told himself that he was just having a delayed reaction to whatever the hell he’d just gone through.  Once the weird paralysis wore off and he could get up and get away from here, get to his van and get back to base and get a nice healing blast from Medic, he’d be fine.  He repeated that to himself.  He was going to be all right.  He wasn’t in any trouble.  Just scared.  Perfectly acceptable to be scared after that entire situation.  Hell, the worst part was going to be convincing the others to believe him.  But it wasn’t like it would be hard to convince them to come out here and blow up the landscape so who cared if they believed him or not, as long as they helped him destroy this entire place?

But by the time he was able to start twitching his fingers, to finally sluggishly shift from his back to his side, limbs still numb and unwieldy, that fear had grown.  Something was wrong with him, horribly wrong.  He could barely move even without the effect of Tenta’s poison.  He felt weighted, anchored, with something tying him to the spot, holding him from his escape.

He rolled to his hands and knees, shakily holding himself there.  His eyes and mouth and his right ear were still glued shut.  Sniper managed to get one hand up, grasping at the hardened material over his face.  It was smooth, cool and hard, and for some reason it reminded him of a necklace of pearls his mother had only brought out for very special occasions back at home.  He felt of the piece over his eyes, trying to find an edge, a place to pull, but everywhere it felt like nothing but a smooth transition from skin to shell.

Both hands at it now, a desperate scrabbling, clawing at his own face, viciously yanking at the hard substance, barely aware of the welling of blood from the scratches he was leaving, a faint whimper bubbling in his throat when he couldn’t get the damn thing _off_.  He didn’t know how well he could find his way back to his van blinded, whether there might be other beasts roaming around that could get at him in these woods.  His mouth and ear could wait but he had to be able to see.

After an eternity of struggle, he finally felt a catch against his fingernails, digging into his own flesh to be able to do so, and he pulled as hard as he could.  It felt as though his eyelids could be torn off, he could practically feel fingernails separating from their beds as he pried, but he didn’t dare stop, he had to get his eyes back, and he repeated to himself, _Medic can fix it, Medic can fix it_.  He’d seen that Medigun do miraculous things with worse injuries, and that thought kept him pulling hard-

The pearly glob came loose with enough force that he lost his grip, and his muffled swears were nearly audible despite the gag as the piece flew out of his hand and he clutched at his face, trying to minimize the pain from once again losing a decent layer of skin.  But he was able to slowly squint his eyes open, his vision still blurry without his glasses.

It was nearly pitch black.  It had been early afternoon when he’d gotten here, and he hadn’t been working on his camp that long, but now it was night, far after dusk, and if not for the moon being most of the way to full, he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

Sniper saw a faint tan outline not far away, and realized that it was his tent.  He wasn’t having any trouble adjusting to the darkness, thank God for small favors, so he started to try and pull himself to his feet.  The instant he took his weight off his hands and knees, though, he found himself going face-first into the soil, groaning a bit at the hurt.  He felt weak, shaky, and still cold, still frozen from the heart out.

He felt an urge to crawl back into the water.

If he weren’t chilled already, he would have been when that feeling got through.  Sniper glanced back, expecting to see Tenta behind him, goading or beckoning him, but the water was clear and flat, as though nothing had ever broken it’s surface.  But the fact that for the first instant, he felt not relief, or anger, or a desire to murder the thing that had maimed him so badly, but instead, felt _disappointed_ , reeled him back more than anything could.

He turned away quickly, and started crawling.  If his legs wouldn’t support him, then he would drag himself on his belly if need be.  He couldn’t stay here, this place was messing with his mind.  This entire damn forest needed to be destroyed.  It was wrong, the whole place was wrong.

Sniper managed to get to the camp, fumbling around a moment before getting his hands on his pack, yanking things out of it before finding the flashlight, struggling a minute to get it turned on, looking around with the thin beam of light, trying to get his bearings.  Half-dead or not, he couldn’t forget his years in the bush, couldn’t let himself give in to whatever creeping panic was trying to drag him back.  He could remember the radio Engineer had insisted on for his van, and he knew that he didn’t have to try and make it back to base.  He couldn’t, he knew that now, there was no way.  He just had to get to the van, just had to turn the radio on and call for help.

He would figure out how to do that without his mouth when he got there.

He tried again to walk, and had a bit better luck with it this time.  He was wobbly, had to move slow, but he had a little more strength, and he staggered in the direction he’d come in, illuminating a path, bare feet tracing out safe footfalls.

Sniper paused and leaned against a tree, turning to glance back at the pond.

Couldn’t go back there yet.

_Yet?_

No.  Absolutely not, no, no no no _no_.  He wasn’t coming back here, not without Pyro at least.  Don’t think like that.

He forced himself to press on.  Shaky legs or not, he had to get away from here.  This whole bloody place was insane and it was taking him with it.

Sniper kept his mind on tracing his path, watching where he put his feet, and bracing himself from tree to tree as he walked.  No room for anything else in his mind.  He chanted it to himself.  Get to the van.  Call for help.  Get to the van.  Call for help.  He pretended he couldn’t tell how badly he was shaking.  He fell once or twice, legs twitching and failing to keep under him, and he just crawled and scooted until he could get himself back up again.  He wasn’t going to turn around, not for anything.

He didn’t think about the warmth that Tenta had provided for him before.  Didn’t think about how downright tolerable the ache of his lungs without their air had been compared to the strain of dragging breaths in through his damaged throat and nose.  Didn’t even acknowledge that every foot he claimed in returning to his camper seemed to drain another degree of temperature from his body.

Get to the van.  Call for help.

His vision was so bad.  Hadn’t mattered down below the water.

Get to the van.

He had responsibilities.  He had a family to support, he had people counting on him.  His teammates would come looking for him.  They needed him.

Tenta had talked of how long it had been.

He had his team.  He had Pyro, his partner in fire arrow-related malarkey.  Demoman and his endless supply of cheap alcohol and good cheer.  Scout, that ankle-biting little demonspawn, someone had to keep an eye on him.  Engie always looked out for him, for all of them, couldn’t disappoint him with this nonsense.

Was Tenta all alone in that pond?

Spy.

He had Spy to get back to.  He didn’t need some crazy monster posing as the man he’d started out his employment hating with the energy of a million suns.  The man he’d wound up stranded with on a battlefield with those robots clattering all around them, getting pinned together under an avalanche of rocks in that ridiculously unsafe mine.  Stuck together for several hours as their team fought to win the battle before they could even begin to dig out their companions.

He remembered Spy’s weight on top of him, the Frenchman’s bitter complaints at the situation, how at first Sniper had wished one of them had kept their knives in hand while getting buried so they could at least suicide their way out through Respawn.  But after long enough the confinement had started to get to the masked man, he’d started to fidget and struggle, and there was some awkward crotch placement with how they were laying together, Sniper flat on his back with Spy facedown on top of him, and well, things just got out of hand…

He tried to cling to that memory.  His anxious attempts to still Spy’s wriggling, grabbing the man by the hips, Spy all but yelling in his face, about the inappropriateness of it all.  But he wasn’t without his own reaction, Sniper had pointed out to him, and there had been glaring and cussing and threats to each other, and all that hatred, the burning fury, all that misplaced, undirected passion, well, it just hadn’t had an escape any more than they had…

He saw the horizon ahead.  Thank God.  Thank God, because that meant the trees were almost gone, and he caught a reflection of a headlight when he aimed the flashlight towards it, and there was his camper, his home, his safety, and he needed it, more than ever before he needed to have that concrete thing to cling to.  Sniper keened against the pearl coating his mouth, an animalistic moan of pure relief and absolute exhilaration that his nightmare had an end.  He could call for help.  His team would save him.

He could get this goddamn thing out of his _chest_.

Sniper didn’t notice that thought when it came through, he was too intent on getting to the door, falling once more and using his arms to drag himself through the sand, not caring about the abrasion against his skin anymore. Not caring about anything but putting a stop to this, stopping this pain, the cold, the numbing, unyielding _cold_ , and he needed his team for that, needed Medic to fix him, he had to see Spy again, he had to get himself fixed up.

Fumbled at the door of the driver’s compartment, threw it open, all but fell to the floorboard, grabbing for the radio, knocking it to the ground.  He was shaking so hard he couldn’t fully control his limbs anymore but that was okay because it was going to be over, Engie would know he needed help and they would come and they would fix him, they’d _fix_ him, thank God, he could get back to his friends, to the man who he loved, who he couldn’t be without, not another day in his life, he could be intact again, all he needed was this thing out of his chest and everything would be okay again, he knew it, he just _knew_ it.

By the time he managed to get a thumb over the button and Engie’s voice was coming through it, sounding concerned, asking him for clarifications he just couldn’t give, Sniper didn’t understand why a part of him felt at all wrong that the mental image he was clinging to so he could keep going was still a masked man, but whose legs were somehow being eaten away in a mass of writhing tentacles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story abruptly changed from what I expected it to be >,> So it's not a two-parter now. Hopefully it is just a three. Four tops. We'll see.
> 
> And while there are some extra ships in here (and an OC Engie-wife), I didn't tag them because I didn't want people thinking they'd get a story with their ship in it when it's only mentioned in passing. So, extra ships: Engie/OC, Soldier/Merasmus. Because that's just the world I live in.

Spy chewed on the end of his cigarette slightly...nasty habit, but one he hadn't ever managed to completely break himself of, especially not at times when he was stressed. He was pacing around outside of the transport truck his teammates had driven out into this godforsaken desert with, parked next to Medic's re-appropriated ambulance and Sniper's van next to an unlikely green forest jutting out of the base of a large rock formation.

He didn't begrudge Sniper his need of solitude, quite the contrary. Spy understood perfectly. It was the main reason he had insisted on his smoking room, and that no one else was allowed inside without explicit permission. And that he only granted to Sniper and, on rare occasions, Scout, when the boy had messed up something new and needed advice.

What he did hate, what he would always hate, was that Sniper's preferred method of getting peace and quiet was to disappear out into the desert or mountains or wherever they were currently living for hours or even days at a time with no contact. He insisted he would be fine, and he always did come back relatively intact, maybe a bit scratched up or dirty, but Spy fretted over it every time, even before their somewhat ill-advised romance had been struck up. In the beginning it had simply been a desire to not have to deal with the repercussions if a part of his team was devoured by some wild beast, even if he privately had entertained the hilarity of the notion. Now it was a deeper concern, a worry of a more personal loss, which Sniper had always brushed off with a laugh and a mention that he was worrying too much.

When Engineer had called the team in the middle of the night to tell them Sniper had activated the distress signal on a radio in the van, Spy's emotions had simultaneously been fear, concern, and anger that the idiot insisted on being alone so far from help.

Scout had tried to reassure him on the ride over, the two of them sitting up front with Medic in the supply-jammed ambulance, the doctor driving with Scout sort of wedged between the two men. "You know, he probably just left some animal in his van and it bumped the radio or somethin'. Engie said that Snipes didn't say nothin', right? It's probably fine, we'll get there and Snipes will be cooking some dead thing on a fire and it'll all be good, yeah?"

Spy almost was willing to let himself believe this was just a misunderstanding. The noises coming from the radio hadn't sounded human. Whines and scratches, strange guttural groans. It was certainly easy to see where the others could think they were hearing an animal. But Spy recognized those sounds. Not in this context, not laced with what sounded like fear and pain. He had heard them in whispered exchanges in the halls, in shouts of aggravation during the heaviest parts of battle, in throes of passion. He knew Sniper's voice, even when there were no words to be found in it. That was no animal pawing at a radio. Sniper was in trouble.

He just hadn't accounted for how  _much_  trouble.

They'd arrived just after the sun had broken over the horizon, and found the man halfway hanging out of his van, apparently only somewhat conscious, and he was  _hurt_. Even from inside the ambulance, they could see what looked like a massive bite wound in his shoulder, that he was naked save for some tattered remnants of his pants, and he was covered in strange abrasions, multitudes of tiny red dots. Spy had been reminded of books he'd seen with pictures of children recovering from chickenpox, and for a second he thought maybe Sniper was ill from an animal bite.

Scout had been the first to get to the other man, bailing out over Spy's lap before the ambulance had even stopped moving. He ran to the van, working to get Sniper out and roll the man to lay on his back on the ground...and Scout had shrieked and jumped away, and his recoil had revealed even more horrific problems.

"Good freakin' holy God, what is that on his face?"

Spy and Medic were there as fast as they could be, Medic hurriedly pulling on the backpack carrying his Medigun, and Spy didn't even hesitate to slide onto his knees in the dirt next to Sniper. Medic knelt beside him, both of them staring at the shiny white substance that seemed fused over Sniper's lower face and one ear. While that was the horrifying part, Spy could also see dried blood over the man's face, deep scratches and reddened flesh as though some of his skin had been ripped off.

"Mon dieu, Sniper…" Spy reached for the other man's hand, but a pained noise caused him to look and see that a few fingernails were gone as well, with bloody, barely dried scabs that looked quite painful. "What has happened to you…?" He winced when he realize that Sniper was shivering at the same time, and without hesitation unbuttoned his suit jacket, putting it over the injured man.

Medic was taking all this in with a frown, looking up at Scout, who was just staring wide-eyed, and the German man reached out to tap the younger on the hip, drawing his attention. "Scout. Zhere is a drill and a box of attachments in my van. I am going to need it."

Scout just blinked at him, then nodded once, running off to fetch the tools, even as the transport with the rest of their team was drawing close and parking. Heavy was behind the wheel, and as soon as the back opened, Soldier, Pyro, and Demoman literally tumbled out into a pile of limbs and guns on the ground. Engineer was behind them, hauling one of his toolboxes along, ready to drop a Sentry if it were needed. He actually looked slightly bewildered that there wasn't an immediate threat to respond to, just holding the box at his side before looking over, grimacing when he saw Sniper laid out on the ground with Spy and Medic kneeling next to him. "How is he, doc?"

"Stay over zhere," Medic said without hesitation, not taking his gaze off the Australian as Scout ran back over to him, holding a battered toolkit of some sort. "Spy, go over zhere vith zhem. Scout, fetch a blanket, then stay here and help me."

"Right, doc," Scout said, casting a sympathetic look to Spy before taking off again to do as instructed.

Spy wanted to protest this, but contented himself with one pat on Sniper's hand before getting up and walking over to the others, Heavy joining them while Soldier, Demo, and Pyro were still untangling themselves and their weapons.

"How is Sniper?" Heavy asked in a low voice, glancing over as the buzz of Medic's drill carried through the still morning air.

"Somezing has hurt him badly," Spy had said, taking out a cigarette from his case, and that had been all the conversation that had been necessary. Now here he stood watching helplessly with the rest of his team, chewing the cig rather than smoking it, not wanting to admit to being too nervous to even attempt to light it.

Medic was still working, Scout assisting where he could, running to fetch further supplies or holding things as Medic handed them off. The pair's relationship had surprised most of their teammates when they had discovered it, and while there had been some tension for a while between the nine mercenaries as everyone adjusted to the knowledge, by this point it wasn't even worth attention. Spy was a bit grateful to the two of them for it, frankly, because when the team had found out about he and Sniper much later, that road had already been traveled. And after  _that_ , Soldier had "come out" about a relationship with that daft magician, Merasmus, and while there might have been some muttering from Demoman about not trusting the "eyeball-stealing witch," no one really had anything to say about it.

Really, Spy was more baffled that over half their team had turned out to have those particular proclivities than by the fact that Soldier was apparently involved with an antagonistic wizard.

But he felt that he remained beholden to the doctor and the young runner for clearing the way for his happiness with Sniper. And now he had to add to that feeling by seeing the two working to try and repair the damages of whatever had happened to his lover. Medic had seemingly been teaching the youngster some tricks of his trade, which was probably not a bad idea in their line of work. Spy watched as Medic adjusted the end of the drill he was working on, and Scout was reaching out to take the discarded bit in the same instant Medic was holding it out for him. The two clearly had experience with working together on these things, anticipating each other's movements and thoughts.

Spy wasn't sure if he felt pride or jealousy for them over it.

The sound of the buzzing drill clicked off, and Medic pulled away the broken-off bits of the hard shells on Sniper's face, setting them aside, motioning for Scout to put those in the van, presumably for some further examination later. The doctor lifted the hose of his Medigun from it's clip, aiming it to Sniper, and pushed the nozzle forward, working on healing up the injuries. Spy didn't wait to be called over, immediately going to check on Sniper himself. "Doctor?"

"Shhh." Medic shook his head slightly. "Give him a moment. However long he has been here, he vill probably be in some shock even after healing."

Scout trotted back from putting away the tools in the ambulance, standing next to Spy, scratching at his head as the wounds slowly vanished from their teammate. "What kinda animal would leave all them little weird marks all over him, doc?"

"Vell, if I didn't know better, I vould svear zhey looked like somezhing from an octopus or some creature of that nature." Medic frowned. "Zhough vhere he vould have run into such a beast in zhe middle of zhis forest is beyond me. Hopefully he can tell us."

On the ground, Sniper groaned softly as the last of his injuries were cleared, and Medic turned off the nozzle, clipping it back into place, reaching down to put a hand on Sniper's chest. "What…?" the Australian murmured, blinking open his eyes and squinting at them.

"It's all right now, you're safe vith us," Medic said, glancing back to Spy. "Does he keep any spare glasses in zhe van?"

"In ze cab, ze glovebox," Spy said, just a little curtly, and Scout scurried off to fetch without a word.

"Oh God…" Sniper braced his arms and sat up, shuddering, letting the blanket he'd been under slip down to his lap, Spy's jacket rumpled on top of it. "Oh God, it's not over…"

"Shush, yes it is," Medic said, frowning and putting a hand on Sniper's shoulder. "You are safe now, vhatever attacked you is gone and ve can get you back home."

The others had decided that things seemed to be all right, and the group headed over, Engineer already speaking in a voice that didn't quite hide the concern. "Good thing you remembered the radio, stretch," he said. "Whatever tore you up might'a come back to try again."

Sniper looked up at him, around at the group, then to Medic kneeling beside him. The confused expression vanished in an instant, and with a speed that seemed more Scout's level than his own, Sniper lashed out, grabbing the doctor by the lapels, teeth practically bared. "Take it outta me!"

Medic blinked at the sudden yank, grabbing at Sniper's wrists to stabilize himself. "Vhat? Take vhat out of you?"

"The heart! The...the thing in my heart, you gotta get it outta me, doc!" Sniper was moving now, shifting quickly up onto his knees, tangled for a moment in the blanket but still practically shaking Medic by the coat. "Take this bleedin' thing outta me!"

"Sniper?" Spy got hold of the man's shoulders, trying to pull him away. "Sniper, calm down, what iz wrong with you?"

The Australian didn't even slightly loosen his grip, a near-deranged look on his face. "Doc you are gonna take this thing out of my chest or I swear to God I will cut it out meself! It has to come out!"

"Whoa, whoa whoa!" Scout joined Spy in trying to pry Sniper's grip away from Medic. "Snipes, calm the hell down, man!"

Sniper let go of Medic, letting the older man drop back on his rump, and spun around, shoving hard enough at Scout and Spy to slam Scout against the side of the van and cause Spy to go sprawling backwards in the dirt. "You don't understand! I gotta get it out! It's gotta go, I gotta get back to him!"

Heavy immediately lumbered forward to get his arms around Sniper, trying to keep him from lashing out any more. "Calm down, Sniper," he muttered, trying to keep him in place. "You are hurting team."

" _The hell with you!_ " Sniper twisted in the giant's grip, and with an accuracy brought from years of battle, brought the heel of his hand straight into Heavy's nose with an immediate crack and gush of blood. The Russian let out a growl of pain, stepping back to grab at his face, and Sniper was immediately on Medic again, grabbing the bewildered doctor's arm in a bruising grip to yank him back on his feet. "Take it out!"

"I vill do no such zhing! Zhat is for your own protection, Sniper!" Medic tried to pry himself loose of the iron grip, glaring down his teammate. "You vill unhand me or I vill take your hand off myself!"

"You don't bleedin' understand! He won't take me back without it! He won't fix this! He won't  _fix it_!" Sniper's other hand grabbed hard at Medic's collar, with enough strength to actually bring the doctor's heels off the ground. "Either take it out or give me the goddamn scalpel!"

There was a sudden loud  _WHOOSH_ , and the two men were both knocked sideways by a harsh current of air, coming straight from the barrel of Pyro's flamethrower. The instant he was off-balance, Soldier and Demo were pouncing Sniper, bringing him to the ground, while Engineer was quick to step in and get Medic's arm to keep him from getting brought down into the brawl with them. "You all right, doc?" Engie asked.

"Of course, zhank you," Medic replied, brushing his coat off a bit and watching as Demo and Soldier managed to wrestle Sniper onto his front and practically sit on him to keep him on the ground. The Australian was screaming at the top of his lungs, still ranting about someone not taking him back, and was bucking and struggling hard enough that the other two were having trouble holding him.

"Doc." Medic felt a nudge at his side, and Scout was standing there, rubbing at his own back with one hand and pointing to Heavy with the other, the Russian still grumbling and tending to his injured face.

"Ah. Danke." Medic gripped the Medigun again and focused it on Heavy, fixing up the damage, then turning the beam on Scout and Spy in turn, as Pyro helped Spy off the ground and to his feet. "Spy, are you all right?"

"I will be fine," Spy said, looking at Sniper with a pained expression. "Who iz he talking about?"

Pyro mumbled something, gesturing a bit and pointing to the camper, but Scout shook his head. "Nah, man, I was just in there. Trust me, ain't no place he could hide somebody. He's alone."

Medic was watching the wrestling bout on the ground nearby, as despite any logic, Sniper was managing to put up one hell of a fight against Soldier and Demo. "Scout, zhere are some vials of ether in zhe back of my van, could you fetch me one und a clean cloth, please?"

"Good plan, doc," Scout said, turning and running off to get the requested items. "It's the brown ones, right?"

"Zhey are all brown, I've told you, read zhe labels!"

"Yeah, yeah…"

Heavy looked over to Medic, frowning. "Sniper is not man who cheats. He is happy pair with Spy. Why does he speak of other man?"

Medic shook his head, casting a look towards Spy. "Have you two been having any...difficulties in your relationship?"

The glare he got in return would have withered the composure of any other man. "We have not," Spy hissed. "Zings have been as happy with us as zey ever are, considering we have to live with ze lot of you. He even offered to bring me along on zis ridiculous venture of his and I turned it down. Camping is his lot, not mine."

"I don't figure Snipes would go sneakin' off to cheat. And even if he would, that sure as shoot don't explain what the hell bit a chunk out of his hide and marked him up that way, or why he's actin' crazier than a shithouse rat," Engineer pointed out. "Something else is going on here."

Scout jogged over, holding out a bottle and a washcloth for Medic, who took them with a nod of thanks, looking at the bottle to make sure it was the right thing before heading over to where Sniper was still swearing and screaming on the ground, Soldier sitting basically on his shoulders and Demo holding his legs. Medic knelt down, reaching out to get hold of his face to look him in the eyes. "Sniper, look at me. I am going to help you, but you have to help me to do zhat. Explain to me who it is you are trying to get back to."

Sniper ground his teeth hard enough that there was an audible creak, digging his hands into the sand beneath him, still squirming. "The...the Tentaspy...the monster in the water!"

"Tentaspy…?" Medic said, raising an eyebrow.

"Spy's face...it had Spy's face!" Sniper thrashed again, but Soldier shifted and thumped him back against the ground. "Like a giant octopus with his face and it...he...he needs me! Doc he needs me to get back, I  _have to_ , Doc, I have to!"

"A monster?" Demo leaned forward just enough to look, though not moving from where he was straddling Sniper's back. "Lad, I don't think ye need ta be gettin' back to somethin' like a monster."

"No! No, no, I mean, he ain't a monster! He ain't! I just don't know what to call him!" Sniper shook his head desperately. "Just like a fish, that's all like, a fish with a face, but I gotta get the thing outta me heart and go back!"

Medic just stared at him with a confused expression for a moment, then looked down, popping open the bottle of ether and pouring a bit into the cloth. "All right, I've heard enough. Don't vorry, Sniper, you're just going to take a little nap now and ve'll fix you up."

"He ain't a bad sort, doc, I promise he ain't, we just gotta get the thing out, please!" Sniper was out and out pleading with him at this point, even as his frame was still racked with harsh tremors. "It'll make me all right as rain, that's all we gotta do, he's just there in the water!"

"Yes, of course. I imagine ve vill take a look into zhat vater ourselves." Medic reached down with the soaked rag, immediately pressing it over Sniper's face. "Soldier, hold your breath, zhese fumes are powerful."

Soldier cheerfully obliged by pinching his nose shut, watching as Sniper jerked and started trying to claw at the cloth, but Medic kept both hands over his face, not letting up until the twitching and fighting slacked off, then ceased, Sniper's eyes rolling back in his head as he went limp against the dirt. Medic murmured a count under his breath before pulling the cloth away and tossing it aside. "Let's get him into zhe ambulance, I can set up a stand to keep him out until ve figure zhis out."

Demo and Soldier got to their feet, with Demo reaching out to pluck Soldier's fingers away from his nose to get him to start breathing again. "Doc, our Sniper's gone a wee bit bonkers," he said, his eye casting sideways to where Spy was still leaning against Sniper's van, with Pyro standing next to him and trying to comfortingly rub his back. It said a lot that Spy was allowing the firebug's attentions without any snide comments or attempts to brush Pyro aside, just staring fixedly at Sniper, gnawing at the end of his cigarette.

"It vould seem so. But for now, bring him." Medic gestured as Demo and Soldier each got hold of one of Sniper's arms, propping the unconscious man between them and following the doctor towards the back of the ambulance. The others stayed standing in an awkward circle, just looking at each other.

"I'm thinkin' we need to go on a little walk in the woods and see what we can find," Engie eventually said, moving to pick a spot with a good view of the surrounding landscape. He finally put down his Sentry and drew his wrench from his pocket to help it along in growing back to its full size. "I'll leave this here on guard."

"Da. We must see if we can find what is out there. Sniper speaks of monsters. Is not unheard of." Heavy cracked his knuckles, heading for their transport. "Let me get Sascha."

Medic poked his head out of the back of the ambulance. "No one is going anyvhere vithout me! All of you just vait zhere until I have Sniper stabilized!" Then he vanished back inside, and after a second, Soldier and Demo both seemed to be booted out rather indelicately before the doors slammed shut again.

"I...better get in there," Scout said with a grimace, hurrying over to pull open the door of the ambulance and clambering in after Medic, pulling the door shut again.

Soldier and Demo just wandered back over to the others, Soldier speaking up. "Men, we may need to see about recruiting a new Sniper. Our's appears to be broken."

Pyro only had to tighten his grip on the back of Spy's dress shirt to keep him back, which was likely fortunate for Soldier. "Somezing attacked him, you simple, disgusting-!"

"Hrmma hrm!" Pyro pushed Spy back, keeping him from going right for Soldier's throat. "Hurng badda hrn!"

"I don't care, I am going to  _kill him!_ "

"Easy there, pardner. You're just freaked out and tryin'a find someone to take it out on." Engineer moved between Spy and Soldier, keeping his hands up. "Soldier, we ain't replacin' Sniper, we just gotta figure out what happened to him and we gotta fix it. And I'm guessin' that starts with goin' in the woods here and finding whatever thing in the water it was he was fussin' about."

"When Medic is done, we go," Heavy said. "We get our weapons ready for now. Then we go."

Spy bared his teeth at Soldier, then just pulled away from Pyro, brushing off his clothing, digging in the pocket of his pants for his lighter and finally lighting his cigarette, puffing away at it. After a moment he turned, opening the front door of the cab of Sniper's van and climbing inside, sitting behind the driver's seat and slamming the door shut behind him, just staring forward at the oasis they were parked beside.

"Well. We all got our ways'a copin'." Engie sighed a bit, tending to his Sentry. "Ya'll get ready. We'll be on our way in a few."

( )

Medic fortunately kept a full supply of medical supplies in his ambulance, complete with a gurney and stands for IV bottles, which meant that in no time he had Sniper bedded down, covered in a few blankets to try and stop the apparent chills, and with a thin tube of medicine steadily dripping into his system to keep him unconscious. Even with this, the Australian twitched, whimpered, and moaned out what sounded like it was intended to be words.

Scout and Pyro were staying behind with Sniper. Scout, after a quick lesson from Medic, was staying to change out the bottles of medicine keeping the man unconscious and non-combative, and Pyro to help keep guard along with the Sentry that Engineer left to protect them. The other six were currently trudging through the strange forest, looking for whatever Sniper had been talking about, or at least any clue as to why their normally level-headed teammate seemed to have stepped right off the edge of sanity.

" _Verdammt!_ "

There was the swoop of a bonesaw being swung, accompanied by loud, indignant German swearing, which, judging from how Medic had been bitterly complaining about the mosquitoes from the word go, probably were insect death threats.

"Doc, you gotta relax," Engie said, turning to look at the man, who was still brandishing his saw and darting his eyes about, looking for the offending bug.

"I vill relax vhen zhe beast is slain!" Another wild swing, then another curse as Medic slapped at the back of his neck, gritting his teeth.

"Well, you're kinda bringin' a shotgun to a dart game there, Medic."

"I have a shotgun!" Soldier said as helpfully as he knew how, immediately grabbing the weapon, and without hesitation firing it in the direction of the mosquito...which incidentally happened to also be Medic's direction. Fortunately, the aim wasn't just right for disaster, but there was a loud response anyway.

" _SOLDIER!_ "

Demoman was immediately there to snatch the gun out of Soldier's hands, grimacing. "Ye'll get this back when yer able t'control yerself."

"I was killing the mosquito." Soldier raised his helmet enough to blink in some confusion at his friend. "Engie said to use a shotgun."

"For the love of God…" Engineer raised his goggles to his forehead to be able to rub his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. "Don't use a shotgun on a mosquito, Solly. Overkill only applies when we're on duty. Which we ain't right now."

Medic only spared long enough for a withering glare at Soldier, miming a swing at him with the saw, before moving past them and hurrying ahead to catch up to Heavy, who was effortlessly making a pathway through any brambles and briars, borrowing Soldier's shovel to chop away the worst underbrush. Spy was right behind him, practically his natural territory, but he seemed very ill at ease, holding a fresh cigarette between his fingers but not smoking it, just nervously fiddling with it, twirling it back and forth between his knuckles. He barely looked up when Medic was beside him.

"He said ze creature had my face," he muttered, pinching the cigarette a moment, studying the tobacco inside. "What do you zink that means?"

"I zhink it means Sniper vas injured and incoherent," Medic answered, following as Heavy paused to literally just shove a smaller tree over and out of the way. "I don't zhink we are going to find anyzhing but some strange animal, vith an unknown toxin, and I vill extract a sample and find a cure for him and zhis vill all be nozhing but a memory of a very unpleasant experience."

"If he were merely poisoned, doctor, why would your Medigun not fix him?"

"It heals injuries, not conditions, Spy. Zhe same vay it cannot stop vhen Sniper blinds us vith his infernal Jarate. Vhile it repaired zhe damages already done, zhe poison is still inside his system. Zhat is all, ve vill either find a cure or keep him alive until his body flushes itself."

Spy didn't seem entirely convinced of that explanation, but before he could press further, Heavy interrupted them.

"I see water," he muttered. "Ahead. With a cave."

Medic put a hand on Heavy's shoulder and leaned up and against him to look past him. "Vell, Sniper did say zhat it vas in zhe vater."

Heavy nodded, pulling aside some branches and letting Spy and Medic pass before proceeding through, calling back to the others to join them. The six men stood and stared at the pond a bit, before Soldier once again helpfully commented, "Yes, this is certainly water."

"Yeah. And uh. We ain't exactly prepared to go divin' for answers." Engineer scratched his head a bit. "I'm realizin' that it ain't gonna be easy gettin' whatever nasty little monster outta here with just our guns."

"Look over here," Demo said, walking past them, over to the ravaged remnants of what looked to be a tiny camp. A tent was still standing, though torn in several places, with the shreds of what might have been a backpack scattered among Sniper's belongings, none of them intact. His rifle was dismantled, a box of matches was strewn around, even his kukri had been snapped clear off its handle. Something had gone through this camp like a particularly malicious tornado.

"Good Lord," Spy said softly, coming over, crouching down to pick up a fragmented metal bit of the giant knife, turning it over in his hands. "I've seen Sniper smash zis against a solid granite wall and it didn't even get scratched."

"Somethin' mighty strong or mighty angry. Or both." Engineer picked up a crushed canteen, then made a face, immediately dropping it and looking at his fingers. "The hell is this?"

"Vhat is it?" Medic got hold of Engineer's wrist to pull his hand in for inspection.

"Some slimy gunk," Engie wrinkled his nose, showing the clear, gelatinous sludge on his fingers. "It was all over that canteen."

"It's on this stuff too," Demo said, holding up a bit of tattered backpack, grimacing at the goo hanging off of it.

"Fascinating. It seems like some sort of…" Medic's voice trailed off at that, clearly he couldn't make up his mind on what exactly the substance was like at all. But he quickly opened the bag at his side, scrambling around for an empty vial and scooping some of the stuff from Engineer's fingers into it, corking it up and tucking it away. "Ve vill figure zhis out back home."

"Still don't answer what did this." Demo stood and brushed his hand off on the front of his uniform. "No animal I can think of t'would be so mindlessly destructive."

"I can zink of one," Spy said, standing and putting his cigarette into his mouth. "But anozer man would not be strong enough. I don't zink even you could have broken Sniper's knife so completely, Heavy."

"Maybe with effort, but not like this," Heavy replied.

During this discussion, Soldier had remained silent, still looking towards the water. He lifted his helmet now, as though to get a better look at something, then lowered it again, abruptly calling out. "Merasmus! You told me that you hated to swim!"

The other five men swirled at that to look at whatever he was looking at, and they were greeted with the image of a figure in the water, shoulders and head just breaking the surface, staring at them. The reaction from all was nearly instantaneous.

"Baby! What are you doin' out here?" Engineer cried out.

"Ma! Th'forest ain't no place fer an old blind woman!" Demoman was covering his remaining eye with one hand, apparently to avoid looking, while grabbing at his protective vest to yank it off. "Cover yer shame!"

Medic looked more annoyed than anything. "Scout! You are supposed to be taking care of Sniper!" he scolded.

On the other hand, Heavy's expression was confusion and concern. "Mama! This is dangerous place!"

Unlike the others, Spy remained silent. But his expression was clearly bewildered, and he took a couple of steps away from the bank of the pond, one hand immediately drawing his revolver and taking aim.

"Do not bother. I wouldn't even feel it," the person in the water said, locking its gaze right on Spy, then scanning the others.

There was a pause as the six mercenaries just stared, before Medic finally spoke. "Vait. Vhy did you all react as zhough you saw someone else? Zhat looks like Scout."

"Doc, ye gotta get yer eyes checked, if'n yer thinkin' that yer wee man looks at all like me mum," Demo said, still keeping his eye covered to avoid looking. "Me mum  _with no shirt._ "

"You're both crazy, not that that's a big surprise to anyone," Engie responded, voice gone icy. "That's my wife Lillie and I would sure appreciate ya'll to quit your gawkin'."

It was a bit of an open secret among the mercs that Engineer was the only one of them to have a wife and children waiting for him back at home. He was the only member of the team that actually negotiated vacations to head back to Texas for a week a few times a year, often juggling Sniper or Pyro into taking his place manning Sentries if there was a sneak attack while he was away. Not that he didn't trust his teammates, just that he felt it was safer to keep his family as separated from this life as possible. All the others knew was there was a wife, and at least a couple of kids, judging from the different handwritings on the postcards that showed up regularly that they only ever accidentally saw. For him to actually speak up, and even name her, brought pause to all the others.

"We...all see different person in water," Heavy finally said, haltingly, glancing to Soldier. "You see wizard, I see my mother, Engineer sees wife…"

"We're seeing our loved ones," Demo said, finally just turning his back altogether so he could finally open his eye. "Well ain't that a boot inna bahooky."

"Zhat vould explain vhy Sniper saw Spy," Medic said, rubbing his chin.

Spy just glanced at them, then narrowed his eyes at the figure. "Zis is not ze time for supernatural juvenile antics! You! Creature!" He made a show of cocking back the hammer on his gun. "What did you do to Sniper and why shouldn't I take your head right off your shoulders?"

The being in the water smirked a bit, speaking again. "It is so rare that I get to meet so many humans at once. The last time, there were the proverbial torches and pitchforks. Now it is guns. I assure you that neither is efficient." The being moved forward in the water, towards them, not quite swimming, just sort of gliding through the water. "In fact, as far as I am aware, what you consider death is naught but a temporary pause in my existence."

Spy was nearly baring his teeth, but Demoman stepped forward to grip his shoulder. "Listen, uh...you. We're here because one'a our friends showed up hurt n' calling for help. He talked 'boot a thing in th'water…"

"That would probably be me, then. The tall skinny one with the glasses and ridiculous hat, I suppose." Abruptly something flicked up out of the water...a long tendril, looking rather like an octopus tentacle. On the end of it was perched Sniper's usual hat, drenched and filthy. "I retrieved this for him for when he comes back. I thought he might like to see it one last time."

"He will never come back you-!" Spy tried to move towards the water again, but Demo continued to hold him back.

"Vhat did you do to him?" Medic asked, frowning and adjusting his glasses slightly. "He is very clearly unvell, and yet I cannot understand vhy."

The...thing in the water flicked the hat towards the bank with that one tentacle, letting the hat land with a faint splat in the mud right at the bank. "If I had simply let him go, he would never have returned. I have learned this from experience. Or far more annoying, he would have returned and attempted to kill me. It would be a waste of time for all of us." It looked towards them, raising one hand. "So I took something he would be sure to come back for."

Something seemed to course from the being's webbed fingers, a sort of glowing, wispy mass of coppers and sandy yellows that congealed into a wobbly, broken sphere in his palm, looking barely held together.

"What is that?" Heavy asked, narrowing his eyes in an expression that just avoided becoming a frown.

"This is a not insignificant portion of the soul of the man who was here." The creature actually smiled slightly, its other hand coming up and stroking a finger along the mass like it was petting a small animal. "One cannot simply take it all, humans cannot survive without it. But you can leave fragments behind...just enough to make a person insane enough to do anything to stop the pain." It brought the sphere up close, to its face, actually nuzzling against it, still acting as though it were holding a beloved pet rather than what it was claiming the mass actually was. "I gave him instructions on how to get this back. He will come home."

"Zhat is impossible," Medic said, scowling, but Engineer held up a hand to stop him.

"So what do we gotta do to convince you to fix our buddy back to normal?"

The being looked back at him, and the colored wisps drew back into his hand, vanishing away out of sight. "He is mine. You will take him over all of our corpses. He knows what to do. If you want him whole, you will help him."

And without another word, without much more than a sudden soft sound of water rushing to fill the space, the creature vanished beneath the surface.

"Wait!" Spy shouted a second too late, starting again for the water and once more being held back by Demo. "Let go of me, you drunken imbecile! I am going to-!"

"Ye're gonna drown yerself and we'll not be one whit better than we are now," Demo gruffed. "An' excuse me if'n I'm still a little bewildered by th'sight'a me own mum lecturin' us on souls."

"I must admit it vas razher disturbing to hear all zhat in Scout's voice," Medic said. "Vell, it's clearly lying about zhat 'soul' nonsense."

"I wouldn't go too far down that road, Doc." Engie shook his head. "This ain't the first time we've got in a tussle with somethin' supernatural."

"Supernatural, fine, but claiming to be able to steal avay a human soul, zhere are limits to vhat I can accept. Zhis creature is outside my understanding for now, but now zhat I have a sample zhat I am sure came from it, I vill be able to uncover vhat it has done."

"But what was...that thing?" Heavy asked. "It looks like person we love. But all see different person."

"It is a siren. A particularly deadly male of the species that intends to lay his eggs in our chests." Soldier nodded once, apparently quite proud of explaining this to his teammates.

"No. Solly. No." Engineer sighed a bit, looking to Spy, who was biting his lip with a befuddled expression, obviously mulling something over.

"You all saw people you loved?" the Frenchman asked, voice unusually soft.

There was a pause before various murmurs of assent. "I saw Merasmus, and I am sure I love him more than Lieutenant Bites, who is my next most loved person. The only reason I did not see America was because America is not yet a person."

"Of course, Soldier." Spy rolled his eyes, looking at them. "And ze way Sniper spoke...he saw me."

"It'd seem so, yeah?" Engineer replied. "Who'd you see, Spy?"

Spy glanced back. "...not someone I loved. I zink zat what we see iz not necessarily the recipient of our positive emotions. Merely our...strongest ones."

"What? Did you not see Sniper?" Heavy blinked.

Spy frowned deeply, all the response that was needed. There was an awkward silence from the others before Spy abruptly reached into his jacket, removing his case, taking out a cigarette, and lighting it up, turning on his heel to start back the way they had come. "Doctor, we need to get Scout and bring him here to look at the creature."

"Vhat?" Medic moved to chase after him. "Vhy?"

"We need to get as much information on zis creature as we can. And if I am right, Scout might be ze only one of us who can take a good look at it."

The others were already chasing Spy, who was moving at a rather brisk pace. "And you zhink he vill not see me?" Medic asked, a clear degree of offense in his voice.

"If I did not see Sniper, doctor, zen I am willing to suspect zat Scout may not see who we might zink he would."

"Whatever this plan is, it seems not to be good," Heavy grumbled. "I am going to speak to Miss Pauling. Bring her here. She can help us."

Spy didn't bother to answer him, just picking up the pace, a determined expression evident even behind his mask. He didn't even seem to care about the brambles or branches ruining his suit, burrs sticking to his clothing. If the others hadn't already known what a serious situation they were in, this would have done it.


	3. Chapter 3

To say that the others were skeptical of Spy’s plan would be an understatement.

Spy had laid out his plan for Scout, and Medic had protested it immediately, not wanting to expose his young lover to the potential ramifications of what could happen if it went wrong.  Not to mention denying that Spy was right in his assessment of the young man’s mental state several times.  Spy had insisted that if he was wrong, the worst thing that would happen would be that Scout had to take a walk in the woods to see a shirtless fish-monster version of Medic in the middle of a pool, and where was the harm in that?  By the time they’d arrived back at their impromptu camp, just around noon, Medic was still against the idea, but also had to admit he didn’t have anything better of his own, and just asked for long enough to check on Sniper’s condition before accompanying them back.

Scout and Pyro had managed Sniper’s condition well, only needing to change out one of the bottles in the meantime, but the man’s violent shivers had only gotten worse, and his skin had gone pale, icy to the touch.  Despite the pile of blankets his two teammates had gathered up to put over him-as well as an alarmingly close bonfire that Medic immediately insisted be extinguished or at least moved away from the ambulance-he still seemed to be slowly freezing.

All Spy had to say was that they needed Scout to come along, and he was up and ready to go.  The young man was too full of bravado to ever admit that he was worried about his teammate, but he was also too bad of an actor to make anyone think he wasn’t.  So with another quick lesson from Medic to Engie about the IVs, and the doctor packing up what he referred to as “emergency supplies”, he and Spy were leading Scout back towards the pond.

They were almost there before it finally occurred to Scout to ask why.

“Because zis creature has a strange effect on the sight of anyone who looks at it,” Spy said, ducking under a low branch, holding it aside for the other two men, letting Medic take the lead for the moment.  “And I zink you may have an immunity to it.”

“Um.  That’s pretty freakin’ weird, Spy.  You guys all were sayin’ that you saw like, loved ones or somethin’ like that.”

“Zey all did.  I did not,” Spy responded with a vaguely sour tone to his voice.

“So what, you’re sayin’ you saw someone that you feel more for than Snipes?  That’s messed up.”

“I agree,” Spy said with an unusual level of calm, considering how he would usually respond to Scout’s inability to speak with any degree of tact.  “But powerful emotions do not necessarily have to be positive ones.  Hatred can be much, much stronger zan love.”

“So you’re tellin’ me that you think I’m gonna see someone I hate more than I love Medic.”  Scout glanced back at Spy with an eyebrow raised.  “Are you tryin’ to break us up?”

“I vould not allow it even if he vere, liebling,” Medic replied, picking out the path that Heavy had cleared on the last trip through. “Just listen to vhat he has to say.”

“Whatever,” Scout mumbled.  “So what the hell d’ya think I’m gonna see?”

Spy paused to step over a pile of messy roots that Medic and Scout had both simply hopped over, grumbling to himself about the casual athleticism the other two possessed that he simply did not.  Then he spoke in a low voice.  “Tell me somezing, Scout.  I have been to your home several times.  And in all zose times, I never saw a photograph of a man zat was not you or your siblings.”

Scout’s tone of voice was instantly and viciously hostile.  “I try not to think about you ever bein’ in my house, ya fuckin’ _cross-ant_.”

Spy ignored the terribly mispronounced jab.  “Zat iz not ze point.  Scout, I know zat your father...was gone...just before you were born.  You never met the man, and as far as I can tell, your mother has never told you much of anyzing about him.”

“Yeah, well, you need to shut up,” Scout growled back, before Medic reached back, taking hold of the young man’s hand to give it a squeeze.

“Zhis is vhat Spy is getting at, Scout,” Medic said gently.  “Your fazher brings up a stronger emotional response zhan anyzhing else I have ever seen from you.”

“And yet, you don’t even know what ze man looks like,” Spy added, moving ahead of them to resume the lead.  “As I said.  Strong emotions do not have to be positive ones.  Zey do not have to be necessarily negative either.  Whatever it iz that zinking of your father causes in you, it iz stronger zan even your love for ze doctor.”

“My ma just...she just didn’t like havin’ stuff’a his around the house afterwards, is all.  It wasn’t nothin’ else or anything like that, it ain’t, you know what, you go to hell!”

“Scout.”  Medic pulled the younger man closer by the hand, putting an arm around his shoulders in an attempt at a comforting hug.  Riling him up so much wasn’t going to help with anything.  “It is going to be all right.  But zhis proves vhat Spy suspected.  You are emotional about your fazher.  Zhat is nozhing to be ashamed of.”

“So I am curious,” Spy said, as they could see the clearing with the pond ahead.  “What the monster will look like to you.”

“It would be useful knowledge to us eizher vay,” Medic said, still trying to reassure Scout.  “Depending on zhe creature’s abilities, eizher you vill see a man you do not know...and in vhich case, you vill learn vhat your fazher looks like…”

“Or, if ze creature somehow can only use what knowledge iz in our minds about ze people we know, it will not be able to use what you don’t even know against you.”  Spy paused at the edge of the woods, looking towards the flat surface of the water.  “You may be ze only one of us to be capable of seeing past ze illusion it presents, and telling us what exactly it iz zat we are dealing with.”

“This is bullcrap,” Scout muttered, stopping next to Spy, taking just a moment to finally lean into Medic, scowling at the pond.  “Why don’t we just pour every chemical in the ambulance into the water and kill this damn thing?”

“Because ve are not sure if zhat vould even vork,” Medic answered, sighing.  “Zhe creature is...vell.  Vhatever it is, it is like nozhing ve have dealt vith before.  And vhatever it has actually done to Sniper, ve need more information to know vhat ve might have to do in order to fix him.”

Scout huffed a little, before finally pulling away from Medic, shaking his head.  “This is stupid, but fine, whatever.  I’ll go look at the monster.  I don’t see where just seein’ the damn thing is gonna be any help for us though.”

Spy nodded slightly, putting a hand to Scout’s shoulder.  “Zank you.  Every bit of information we can get is going to help at this point.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”  Scout just vaulted forward over some brush and into the clearing with the pond, glancing at the wrecked remnants of Sniper’s camp and raising an eyebrow.  “Well that’s promisin’.”

There was a soft hiss of air, and Scout glanced back at Medic, who was loading up his needle gun.  “Don’t vorry, ve vill be right here,” he said, nodding.  “Ve von’t let it come near you.”

“I ain’t scared.  Shut up.”  Scout turned back around, taking a single deep breath, then walked determinedly towards the pond, walking right to the edge of the water, peering into it. After a moment, he kicked at the surface, sending up a fine spray of water.  “Yo, monster mash, get up here an’ lemme see what you look like.  Then I can beat your head in for messin’ up one’a my teammates.”

“Scout, do not stand so close,” Spy said, quickly drawing his revolver and keeping it aimed forward.  “Back away from ze water.”

“I done told you, I ain’t scared of some stupid-,”

There was a burst of water from a few feet away, several tentacles making it clear exactly what the cause was, and Scout let out a wholly undignified yelp, falling backwards onto his rear and scurrying backwards quickly to the safety of the brush in his rush to escape the creature that was hovering close to the edge of the water, narrowed eyes fixed on the three intruders.

“I told you,” Spy muttered, as Medic shifted to put a hand on Scout’s shoulder, the young man looking up at him.

“Are you all right?” Medic asked, glaring at the creature, as it looked towards Scout, an odd little smile starting to curl up at the edges of it’s fanged mouth.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”  Scout muttered, pulling away to get back to his feet, brushing off his clothes.

“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” the creature said, almost actually sounding concerned under the evident amusement.  “I see what you are trying to do and it will end in tragedy.”

“You shut up,” Spy growled at the creature, coming around the bushes to stand closer to Scout, Medic right behind him.  “If you are zis worried, I see we were right about your limitations.”

“It isn’t my limitations that should worry you,” Tenta answered, one tentacle flicking impatiently against the bank.  “It is those of the little one.”

“Hey, fuck you!  I’m gonna stare right at your gross fish ass for that, you-!”  Scout looked up from his clothes, taking a few steps forward, gaze fixed right on the monster.  A couple feet away from the bushes though, he came to an abrupt stop, the indignant bitching cutting off just as suddenly as his forward motion.

There was a long pause as Scout and Tenta simply stared at one another, the creature letting out a slightly exasperated sigh after a moment, flicking a tentacle out of the water.  “Well, now you’ve done it.”

“Scout?”  Medic moved to stand next to the runner, looking between him and the beast in the water, keeping an eye on it’s presence.  “Scout, vhat do you see?”

Scout remained silent and staring, and Spy moved to his other side, sounding concerned.  “Scout?  What iz it?  What does he look like?”

When Scout spoke, he sounded more confused than anything.  “...nothin’.”

“Vhat?”  Medic looked back at him, even as Scout kept his eyes locked on the Tenta.  “Vhat do you mean?”  He put a hand on Scout’s shoulder, pulling at him, trying to get his attention, but Scout stayed stock-still, just staring.

“Nothin’...” Scout repeated softly, biting at his lip.  “It’s...nothin’.”

“How can you not see anyzing?” Spy asked, sounding vaguely frustrated.  “You’re looking right at it!”

“You misunderstand the boy,” Tenta finally said, equally amused and exasperated, and Medic and Spy both glanced toward it.  “He did not say that he cannot see anything.  He told you that he sees _nothing_.”

The two older men just looked at Tenta for a minute, before a faint sound reached their ears, and both looked at Scout, Medic flinching when he saw a dark stain spreading down the front of Scout’s pants.  “Scout!”

The younger man didn’t answer, but then without a preamble or hint of warning, he doubled over, retching and vomiting, staggering backwards before collapsing to his hands and knees, still gagging.  Spy reflexively danced backwards to avoid the worst of the splatter, making a sound of disgust.  “Mon _dieu_!  Scout!  What iz _wrong_ with you?”

“You cannot say I did not warn you,” Tenta said, propping its chin against a tentacle and leaning against the bank to watch.

Medic crouched to grab at Scout, trying to rub his back, hold him, anything to try and offer comfort as the runner seemed to be voiding the entire contents of his stomach, guts still spasming even when there appeared to be nothing left to eject.  “Scout...Scout, try to breathe, it vill be all right.  Scout, just breathe, listen to me, it is all right.”

Scout sucked in a breath between chokes, but then, instead of another mess, all that came out was a warbling, shrill scream as he started trying to scramble to his feet.  “It’s gone!  It’s all _gone_!”

“Scout, calm down!”  Medic pulled him into a tight embrace to keep him still, casting a somewhat panicked look to Spy as Scout just continued to shriek and squirm without pause.  “Vhat happened??”

“I don’t know!”  Spy knelt next to them, grabbing at Scout’s hands.  “Scout, listen to me, you are all right!  You are safe, stop zis!”

“No!  No no no!”  Scout kept struggling and pushing at them frantically.  “All gone!  Everything all gone!  Nothing!  Nothing!  Nothing gone!”  The screams drowned beneath terrified sobs when the other men tried to restrain his flailing arms.  “Stop!  Stop!  Gone!   _All gone_!”

“Scout!”  Medic winced at another dry heave that slipped between the hysterical words, and when that sound was followed not by crying or screams, but instead by what sounded like broken, manic _laughter_ , he gripped Scout by one arm, grabbing at the bag he kept at his side and yanking out something.  “Spy, help me!”

“What are you doing?”  Spy leaned forward to look, but instead grunted when Scout was essentially shoved into him, the young man struggling and still trying to escape from their grasp.

“Hold him!” Medic had snatched up a vial of the needles he typically used as ammunition in his gun, slamming it down and smashing it open on the ground without a second thought, grabbing out one of the hypodermics.

“What are you-?”

“Hold him, _verdammt_!”

Easier said than done, as Scout was still bawling, whole body slick with a greasy, cold sweat and the stains of his accidents, and he was clawing and thrashing as though being held by Satan himself.  Spy gritted his teeth, accepting his suit was probably already ruined beyond saving from everything else today, and flung Scout hard against the ground, grabbing at his wrists and straddling the boy’s stomach, just pinning him flat.

On any other day, this wouldn’t have worked. He knew from unfortunate experience that Scout had no qualms kicking his own teammates in the back of the head to get out of a hold.  But now, the boy seemed completely out of his mind, and while his legs were kicking and he was trying to free his arms, there was no concentrated effort to the motion.  It was the mindless bucking and twisting of a wounded animal in a trap, with no plan beyond escape.  Looking down at him, Spy saw Scout’s eyes were wide, bigger than it seemed could be possible, bloodshot and streaming tears, and even though they seemed to be focused on Spy’s face, Scout’s gaze was nowhere in the realm of being here with them.  Spy almost felt that he should look upwards for some bizarre entity in the sky, that was how far afield his vision seemed to be traveling.

“Okay, all right, keep his arm zhere,” Medic was saying, and Spy looked over to see the doctor now brandishing his needle, full of some clear liquid, his free hand reaching out to help hold Scout’s arm still.  The screaming grew even louder, so nonstop and unyielding that Spy felt concern that the boy was going to suffocate himself, but Medic just kept his grip tight, seeing a vein that was popped up nicely from the strain, and he quickly sunk the needle into that spot, injecting the liquid in a slow, unusually controlled manner.

Scout didn’t respond for a few minutes, just screaming longer, louder, only interrupted by bursts of sobbing or more crazed laughter.  But soon enough, his wild motions slowed, his cries drained down to faint whimpers, and in just a moment, his eyes rolled up into his head, leaving him finally, blessedly motionless, breathing shallowly but no longer in such a state of apparent psychosis.

“What ze hell did you give him?” Spy asked, shifting to get off the boy, glancing over his shoulder, seeing that Tenta was still apparently content to just observe them without trying to come after them.

“It’s called ketamine. It’s an emergency anesthetic at best, for vhen zhere is no other option, but I zhink ve can agree zhis vas an emergency.”  Medic grimaced.  “Hopefully, zhe side effect of, uh, _memory loss_ vill come into play here as vell.”  He glanced back toward the water.  “I had planned on using it to subdue zhat beast, but…”

“It would not have worked anyway,” Tenta offered pleasantly.  “But a good try.”

“What did you do to him?” Spy demanded of the monster, even as Medic carefully pulled Scout’s limp body up from the ground, holding him closely and checking him over.

“I did nothing.  You were the one that insisted on making him see my form.  This trick of mine is as much for luring in my prey as it is for keeping your pitiful minds from shattering.”

Spy curled his lip in a slight snarl, but Medic reached out to grab his shoulder, keeping Scout braced in his other arm.  “Ve have to take Scout back.  He should be safe but I vant him near my equipment if I accidentally gave him too much.”  Medic paused, then raised the hand that he had used to break open his ammo pack, looking at droplets of blood leaking through tears of the brightly colored gloves.  “Also I seem to have some shards of glass in my hand zhat I just realized are quite painful.”

Spy grimaced, then nodded a little, getting to his feet, helping Medic lift Scout from the ground.  “Will you be able to carry him?”

“Ja, I can do zhat.”  Medic winced as he managed to get Scout cradled into his arms with some help.  “Come on, ve have to get back.”

Spy glanced back towards Tenta, narrowing his eyes, then looking back at Medic.  “Go ahead.  I’ll be along soon.”

“Vhat?”  Medic blinked at him.  “Spy, vhat are you going to do?”

“I want to have a little chat,” Spy answered, glaring at the creature, which watched him with an expression of absolute boredom.

“No, absolutely not,” Medic said, propping Scout against his chest to reach out and grab at Spy’s arm.  “I am not leaving you here alone vith zhat...zhat zhing.”

“As you said, you should get Scout back.  But I do not intend to let ze creature come near me.  If it tries, I will cloak and escape.  I am capable of zat much.”

Medic shook his head slightly, but then looked down at his unconscious lover, biting his lip before looking back at Spy.  “If you do not return soon, zhe rest of us are coming back here shooting.”

“Good.  Now go.”

Medic turned without another word, heading for the path in the woods they had already used, taking off in a run to head back towards the others.  Spy watched Tenta until he could no longer hear the other man’s running, knowing that was likely a safe distance, that the monster could no longer chase them.

“You are a truly fascinating being,” it spoke, Spy scowling at the voice.  “Zere have been people like ze boy, zat could see me for what I was.  But never have I met one like you.”

“I suppose for the sake of the rest of the world, I should be grateful.”  Spy turned to face down the creature.  To him, the thing’s indolent posture, leaning against the bank, one tentacle absently plucking at the grass, hands steepled and chin resting against them, should have been the most infuriating thing about it.

But the only thing he could see was the face of a man with a sharp nose, a well defined jawline with a visible 5 o’clock shadow, high cheekbones, and graying temples edging into dark, well-coiffed hair.  Dark blue eyes regarded him with a mixture of bemusement and annoyance, and lips thinned imperceptibly above the ever so slightly pointed chin.

Spy had never been fond of mirrors.  He was considerably less fond of a three-dimensional one.

“What exactly have you done in your life to achieve such a level of intense loathing for yourself?” the creature asked.  “Something vile enough to cause it, and yet not enough zat you are ze sort of person who could dismiss it out of hand as necessary.  You committed some atrocity, and yet you regret it to such a degree.”

“My past iz not a part of what I’m doing here talking to you,” Spy shot back.  “I am here to speak with you regarding what you have done.”

“And what do you expect to achieve by speaking to me?” Tenta asked, flicking the tentacle against the grass once.  “You know zere iz not a zing you can do to harm me.  And I have already taken ze spirit of your...lover, iz he?”

“What would I have to do to convince you to let him go?”  Spy crossed his arms.

“What do you zink you could do?”  Tenta straightened where he was laying across the bank, just remaining above the surface of the water.  “Fight me for him?  Trade me one of ze ozher men you have intruded upon me with?”

“Any of zem except for ze boy,” Spy answered without hesitation.  “I can bring zem back here in no time.  You want someone to imprison, I want my lover back, we will both come out of zis ahead.”

Tenta actually chuckled, shaking its head.  “I suspect your friends would have somezing to say about being offered up as a sacrifice for the sake of a single man.”

“I would say ‘friends’ iz is a little strong of a word.  We work togezher, nozing more.  When our war ends, I expect to never see any of zem again.  So if I have to trade you one of zem in order to have back Sniper, zen so be it.  Name who you want.”

“I have who I want.  Or I will, when ze rest of you finally give in and return him to me in ze condition I will require.”  Tenta scowled slightly at Spy.  “I must admit, even for me, zere iz a curiosity to be had.  A man who sees himself in my reflection, who is willing to give up innocent people to what he sees as a monster in order to save a man that he cannot see through me.”

Spy just glared back at Tenta.  “I would zink a creature of your apparent...ozherworldly stature would not be interested in the trivialities of a single human.”

“On ze contrary.  Humans fascinate me in their pettiness and fragilities.”  The creature tilted its head back, a slight grin showing fangs.  “Your...Sniper, did you call him?  Oh how he fought.  And how quickly he realized the futility of his actions, but he did not give in until I...forced him.”

Spy didn’t answer, but his arms uncrossed, fists clenching at his sides.

“Does zat disturb you?  Ze zings I did to the man you love?”  Tenta put its hand over its chest, where a heart would be if something like it had one at all, a mocking pose of sympathy.  “I would have done more.  So much more.  If not for zat infernal contraption inside of him, he would have been gone, and you would have never known.  Simply vanished from your life, from all your lives, and what option would you have had?  Left alone with the company of men you would sacrifice to get back your beloved?”

All signs of levity and humor vanished, Tenta’s eyes narrowing, and sharp teeth baring in a vicious display.  “Be aware, you pitiful, crowing little man.  You have no barter, no price you can offer zat I will accept.  You return your Sniper to me or he rots away inside his flesh coffin.  He will degrade.  Slowly, surely, before your eyes, any trace that might have existed of the man you knew will erode into _nozing_!  Insanity will be an unreachable, enviable _relief_ for him, for the length of life that his body can grant, for as long as you struggle to keep him alive.  Ze longer you stand zere, simpering your pathetic requests for mercy to me, ze more ze damage is done and cannot be undone!”

“Everyone has a price,” Spy answered steadily.  “Surely zere must be-,”

“Tell yourself whatever you must to get yourself zrough your elder days, while you dream backwards on a lifetime of errors and personal tragedies.  I will not indulge your childish behaviors a moment longer.  Bring back what belongs to me or let him waste away.  Just know zat one way or anozer, you will never again have him, and you are only deciding how long his remains stay fresh.”

The creature turned and dove back beneath the surface of the water, leaving Spy standing alone on the bank.  He flexed his fingers in and out of fists, reaching for the gun at his side, before realizing he had absolutely no plan for what he could do with it.  He couldn’t shoot blindly into the water and hope to hit anything, and he certainly knew better now than to go leaping in there after the creature.  For one of the only times in his life, Spy had no options.

For a few moments, Spy just stood there, feeling unable to proceed.  Every instinct he had told him to attack whatever was hurting his teammate, his friend, his lover.  But cold logic dictated that there was simply nothing he could do.  For all his talents, which he didn’t feel was bragging to state that he had many, none could be applied to this situation.  A situation in which a man who he loved, who he would have done anything to save, needed to be rescued, and he just couldn’t get the job done.

A nasty cold nausea welled in his gut, head beginning to ache with an unpleasant and distantly familiar anxiety.  It had been such a long time that he had been in a situation that he had no way to fix, not even through the depths he had come to learn he was willing to stoop to in order to achieve his goals.  Sniper was hurt, hurt worse than any of them had ever been hurt, and Spy was helpless to fix it.

Not only that, but this monster had done everything while wearing his face.

Turning to walk away felt too much like admitting a defeat.  But standing here motionless wasn’t achieving anything either.  Maybe the others could brainstorm with him.  At the very least he needed to check on Sniper.

Spy backed slowly away from the water, telling himself he was only doing it because he was observing until the last possible second.  As soon as he felt the brush rustling against his legs, he turned his back and hurried through, activating his watch to go invisible for a fast sprint away, out of sight of the pond.

 

( )

 

By the time Spy made it back to their makeshift camp, the afternoon sun was starting to make its way down towards the horizon.  Even if not for the well-worn path Heavy had carved out earlier, he could have found it by following the billowing smoke from Pyro’s bonfire.  Apparently having been left to his own devices meant that the firebug had ravaged the nearest bushes and trees for amusement.  Thankfully the Engineer was probably keeping that under control.  Probably.

He emerged from the bushes and checked once to be sure that neither their vehicles nor the forest was in imminent danger of burning to the ground, then headed for the small circle of the others sitting between the transport and Medic’s ambulance.  Demoman was sitting against the side of the ambulance, with Scout curled up in his lap, head lolling against the older man’s shoulder and bundled up in Medic’s coat, apparently still unconscious.  Spy assumed Medic was with Sniper, but the others were standing around in a circle, looking particularly grim.

“You all right, spook?” Engie asked on seeing him, the rest looking up as well.

“I am fine.  I didn’t achieve much by trying to talk to the beast, but it didn’t seem interested in attacking me.”  Spy came over and squatted next to Demo, reaching out to put a hand to the back of Scout’s head.  “How iz he?”

“Doc says he’ll be back to normal in a day or so,” Demo answered.  “Stuff he got’s gonna leave him on his arse for a while but he’ll be all right.”

“What happened to Scout?  Little man seems very sick when brought back,” Heavy asked.  “Doktor will not explain.”

“I don’t know zat I could,” Spy said, shaking his head, giving Scout’s hair one last stroke before standing.  “He...saw zrough the creature’s disguises.  But whatever he saw...terrified him beyond anyzing I have ever seen.  I just pray zat we have not damaged him permanently.”

“So we are dealing with a monster of monstrous magnitude,” Soldier said, just plopping down in the dirt next to Demo, tilting his helmet back to get a better look at Spy.  “And it wants to eat our brains.”

“Yes, Soldier, whatever you think.”  Spy moved past him and around to the back of the ambulance, peering in.  “Medic?”

The doctor was leaning over the gurney Sniper was still laid up on, the gangly man buried under a pile of blankets, still in a drugged sleep.  Medic was adjusting the chemicals on the IV stand, torn gloves discarded on the end of the gurney, and with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He barely glanced back when Spy spoke.

“No change.  His core temperature has lowered to a degree of hypothermia, no matter how varm ve try to make him.  And vhen I try to bring him back to any degree of consciousness, he goes right back to his ranting and raving about having the Uberheart transplant removed.  I do not know vhy he is so absolutely fixated upon zhat, but...he is.”

Spy climbed into the ambulance onto the other side of the gurney, reaching down to put a hand over Sniper’s chest, shaking his head slowly.  “Would removing ze device hurt him?”

“Vell, in as much as field surgery hurts anyone.”  Medic looked over at him.  “You realize zhat vill not solve our problem.  Zhere is absolutely no way I vill allow Sniper to go back zhere.”

“I know...I know.”  Spy rubbed at his temple, grimacing.  “I just am...I am out of ideas.  I don’t know what we are supposed to do now.”

“Heavy got in contact vith Miss Pauling and she seemed to be interested in our issue.  It vould not surprise me to hear zhat zhe voman knows somezhing about zhis.”

“If she knew zis was here and did not tell us…”

“If she did not tell us, it vas because she did not zhink ve vould ever come out zhis far.  It vas a two hour drive to get out here and a quarter of zhat vas not even on zhe road.  Sniper simply vandered furzher afield zhan Miss Pauling suspected he ever vould.  A miscalculation, not a malicious act.”

“Zis iz not his fault.”

“I didn’t say zhat it vas.”

Spy went silent again, looking down at Sniper, reaching up to lightly run his fingers along the shaggy hair, usually well-slicked back but now hanging in loose tangles around the man’s face.  “How much longer can he last like zis?”

“In a normal sense of hypothermia...vell to be honest, Spy, I have no idea.  Zhere are so many factors in play even if he vere merely freezing in a standard sense that it could be anyvhere from a few hours to a few days.  And I simply do not know vhat ve are dealing vith.” He opened the small bag on his belt, taking out the vial of strange clear material he’d gathered.  “I have zhis, but no vay of exploring it here, and no vay of knowing if it is even anyzhing useful to our knowledge.  Zhere are limits even to vhat I can do.”

“Ze creature said it...took part of his soul, doctor.”

“Spy…”  Medic let out a slightly exasperated sigh.  “You know I do not believe in such zhings.  Ghosts, demons, vizards, now a shapeshifting vater beast, ach, fine, vhatever, I can accept the existence of zhe supernatural as zhings existing in our vorld outside my sadly limited understanding of it.  But I have spent too much of my life examining every inch of a human body to believe ve are run by anyzhing but zhe right combination of proteins and electrical impulses.”

“Zen what is wrong with Sniper, Medic?  Why can’t you fix him?”

Medic rolled his eyes, throwing up his hands as much as he was able in the limited space of the ambulance.  “I don’t know.  I am not trying to pretend I know.  I just don’t believe zhe vord of a monster zhat assaulted one of my teammates and nearly drove my lover insane vith nozhing but its own fetid existence.”

“Zen perhaps you should consider zat zere is somezing else outside of your experience zat could be going on!”

“Vhy are you angry at me?  I am doing everyzhing I can do!  I let you take Scout to see zhat beast and zhank God I happened to have zhe proper medication zhat maybe he isn’t insane forever!  Even if I do agree vith you zhat zhe creature has stolen Sniper’s soul, vhat do you expect me to do about it??”

Spy blew out a breath, shaking his head, just looking back down at the unconscious Australian.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know, doctor, I just don’t know what to do.  I want to...I _need_ to save him...but we have done everyzing that we can possibly do.”

Medic just looked over at him, then, somewhat awkwardly, reached over to put a hand on Spy’s arm.  “Miss Pauling is on her vay.  Maybe she can figure somezhing out zhat zhe rest of us cannot.  It is her business to know zhings, after all.”  He pulled back, checking the glass bottle on the IV stand once more.  “For now ve just vait.  I need to check on Scout again.  You...stay in here and keep an eye on Sniper.”

“Zank you for doing what you could,” Spy said, actually sounding legitimately grateful for once, and Medic regarded him with a raised eyebrow before nodding once.

“Vell.  Ve vill figure somezhing out, one vay or anozher.”  That being said, he turned to step out of the back of the ambulance, going around to join the rest of the team between the vehicles, some more hushed conversation between them not quite audible to Spy.

He moved to carefully settle onto the bench along the side of the compartment, then reached under the pile of blankets covering Sniper to get hold of his hand, squeezing it tightly, wincing at how clammy and cold Sniper’s skin was.  As the doctor had said, there was nothing else to do at this point but wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those wondering, yes, this story has just one more chapter, but there is a (probably much longer) sequel planned. Which is going to be even darker if you can believe that's possible :/ I'm still trying to figure out what the hell to tag some of the material that's going to be in it. So don't worry, there will be more answers coming, even if things don't get wrapped up terribly neatly by the end of this one.


End file.
